The Celtics have started the season 11-3, but a lot of the talk lately is about the stuff they aren’t doing well. They have managed to win a few ugly games and drop a couple that maybe could have gone a different way. Even so, there doesn’t seem to be much worry about the team.
They now face their biggest challenge of the season as the 15-0 Cleveland Cavaliers come to town. Last year at 11-3 the Celtics faced a similar challenge in the Milwaukee Bucks. So let’s compare and contrast where this year’s team stands in comparison to last year’s eventual champions.
All of these stats are through 14 games.
Record:
Last year: 11-3 This year: 11-3
- Boston was 11-2 and lost their 14th game to drop to 11-3. Not only that, it was after a stretch of less-than-stellar performances. They won a tight one in Toronto by three and then went to Memphis for a terribly uninspired game that went down to the wire (remember Jrue Holiday’s inexplicable dunk attempt that missed and then two misses from Memphis in the final possession?). Then they went to Charlotte and lost in overtime.
I wrote this after their loss to Charlotte:
“Boston has been flirting with this kind of result for three games now. Offensive rebounds have been problematic for them for a while now. The same kinds of things continue to haunt them, and at some point they have to decide it’s enough.”
Sounds kind of familiar. They then won their next game to go to 12-3. Turns out they were okay. They should be okay this year, but there are some things to work on. Let's take a deep dive into the numbers.
Offensive Rating:
Last year: 117.6 This year: 121.4
Defensive Rating
Last year: 107 This year: 111.2
Net rating:
Last year: 10.6 This year: 10.2
- Better offense, worse defense, but the difference is about the same. Last season they were third defensively at this point, and right now they're 10th. They were sixth offensively last season but second by less than a point this season.
Maybe this year’s team is just going to win differently. Their offense is certainly evolving.
Field Goal Attempts:
Last year: 89.6 This year: 90.8
Field Goals Made:
Last year: 42.2 This year: 41.7
Overall Field Goal Percentage:
Last year: 47.1% This year: 45.9%
3-Point Attempts:
Last year: 43.8 This year: 51.1
3-Pointers Made:
Last year: 15.9 This year: 18.9
3-Point Percentage:
Last year: 36.4% This year: 37%
- The pace of play is about the same. Boston’s getting up one more shot per game, which is negligible. They're making almost the same amount of shots, so they're not simply adding 3-pointers to last year’s offense. It’s changing to take fewer 2-pointers versus 3-pointers.
Let’s dive deeper into this offense.
Field Goal Attempts By Zone:
Restricted Area:
Last year: 24.5 This year: 20.1
Paint (Non-Restricted)
Last year: 12.4 This year: 13.4
Mid-Range:
Last year: 9 This year: 6.1
Corner 3:
Last year: 7.4 This year: 11.6
Above The Break 3:
Last year: 36.2 This year: 39.4
- There are noticeable drops at the rim and mid-range shots but there are more corner and above-the-break 3-pointers. The corner 3-point increase and restricted area decrease are tied together as the Celtics make reads at the rim that lead to kick-outs.
And before you yell out “THEY’RE NOT ATTACKING AS MUCH!!” … Their drives are only down by one per game, so they're attacking about the same. They are just doing something different when they get to the restricted area.
This is a focus of Joe Mazzulla’s. We heard so much about rim reads last season because he was trying to get his guys to buy into kicking out to the corners more. This year they're doing what he’s asking. I don’t have the exact numbers on this, but Mazzulla preaches that the expected points per shot on an open corner 3 is higher than a contested layup. Also add that most contested layup misses lead to fast break advantages to the other team, and Mazzulla hopes the strategy pays off in more points and less transition .. at least off missed layups.
So offensively, the Celtics really aren’t playing much faster than they did last year. They aren’t shooting more shots, just a few different shots right now. That could change when Kristaps Porzingis returns, because their post touches are down a little (6.2 to 5.3) and their field goal percentage on those is way down (69.2% to 54.3%). Getting some more Porzingis post-ups will change some of these numbers. Those are very often going to come in the paint and they're slower-developing plays, so they won’t be additive to the offense. They will change the shot profile.
If Boston wants to still take all the 3-pointers they're taking now after Porzingis returns, he’ll either have to give way the post ups (which doesn’t make sense because of his advantage there) or they’ll have to play faster to add those shots.
Maybe his defense will help them play a little faster. A few more blocked shots will lead to transition opportunities and trailing 3-pointers on the break are often great looks. However that pans out, the defense will have to improve. Boston’s defense can be so much better.
Here’s a telling group of stats that highlights where Boston’s defensive effort is:
Celtics turnovers per game:
Last year: 13.3 This year: 12
Opponent points off turnovers:
Last year: 15.2 This year: 17.7
Opponent fast break points:
Last year: 12.8 This year: 14.6
- Boston is taking better care of the ball but the turnovers they have given up are more costly. Of course, the Hawks game is a bit of an outlier throwing these numbers off a bit, but that actually makes it look worse. Even with the 20 turnovers in that game, Boston is only averaging 12, which is less than last year at this point. Yet they're still giving up 2.5 more points off turnovers and a couple more fast break points because of it.
The Celtics transition defense has not been great yet. But there are other damning defensive statistics:
Contested shots:
Last year: 49.3 This year: 39.9
Opponent Points in the Paint:
Last year: 43.6 This year: 53.1
- Two things contribute to numbers like this: Effort and execution.
“We're just not executing at the level that we need to,” Mazzulla said after the win over Toronto. “I like the mentality that we've had throughout the season… We're competing. We're just not executing. So when you can win and still be in games, even though you're not at your best, that gives you the mindset of like, ‘hey, we can get better.’ The guys have that, and we just got to continue to work through it.”
I disagree to some level. I don’t think they're competing as they have in the past. I don’t think they're as engaged defensively as they were before, and I think that's why they're not executing as well.
This isn’t just a simple matter of working hard and not being in the right places. I don’t think they're working quite as hard.
As we go deeper into the points in the paint issue, we can see Jaylen Brown is correct when he says “we definitely don’t want to just keep giving up layup after layup after layup. So we’re going to figure some stuff out.”
Opponents in the Restricted Area:
Last year: 14.4-24.1 (59.5%) This year: 18.3-27.1 (67.5%)
Opponents in Paint (Non-RA)
Last year: 7.4-17.4 (42.8%) This year: 8.3-18.6 (44.6%)
- One more non-RA bucket on one more shot is not a big difference, and that might be skewed by the Jakob Poeltl performance on Saturday. The RA numbers, though, are rough. They are allowing three more per game and all of them are made layups … plus one extra for good measure. This is their biggest defensive issue.
“Individual defense are the two biggest areas we have to get better at,” Mazzulla said at practice on Monday. “We just gotta guard the ball and we gotta rebound as a team.”
Allowing offensive rebounds feels like a huge problem. We have to dive into the numbers to see the problem.
Offensive Rebounds Allowed:
Last year: 10.6 This year: 10.1
Second Chance Points Allowed:
Last year: 12.8 This year: 12.9
- The raw numbers are even but we’re not crazy in feeling like they're getting killed on the boards.
Opponent Offensive Rebound Percentage:
Last year: 26.7% This year: 29.3%
Opponent Effective Field Goal Percentage:
Last year: 50.7% This year: 53.8%
Opponent Field Goal Percentage:
Last year: 43.6% This year: 47%
- Here’s where the problem lies. Opponents are shooting better against the Celtics this season, which means there are fewer offensive rebounds to get. Meanwhile, Opponents are getting 2.6% more of the available offensive rebounds.
So they're rebounding a higher percentage of their misses, and there are fewer misses in general. So even though the raw numbers will tell you things are stable, the advanced metrics show the Celtics are worse at keeping opponents off the boards.
And to make the feeling worse, the Celtics were +.8 in points in the paint through 14 games last season and right now they're -8.8. It feels like they're getting smoked on offensive rebounds not only because the Celtics are giving up a higher percentage of them, but Boston isn’t matching it on the other end.
It’s a pretty stark contrast.
Again, Porzingis might help address some of this, but not all of it. The Celtics perimeter defense will get better with Porzingis patrolling the paint behind them, but with more teams trying to play Boston’s high-volume shooting style, it’s not going to be quite as easy as it was before. Boston’s perimeter defenders have to be better.
Their offensive evolution will help make up the difference, but it just leaves them open to shooting aberrations on both ends. A cold shooting night coupled with someone getting hot like Poeltl did on Saturday will make things tougher for Boston.
They also run the risk of hunting 3-pointers without doing the requisite work to generate the good ones. I’ve said it a million times already and I’ll say it a million more: 60 3-pointers generated by good ball movement and drive-and-kicks is better than 30 3-pointers they hunt without ball movement. The latter is the biggest risk of this offensive style.
And unfortunately, one will likely be tied to the other. There's a good chance that on days when they're lazy defensively and allow a bunch of paint points, they’ll also be lazy about how they run their offense. If they're great about their offense, they will probably be more likely to be great about how they defend.
That's why I think the games have played out the way they have. They have four wins of 20 points or more and Seven games that were within six points (four wins, three losses) and just three games between 10-15 points. So it’s basically been either blowouts or close games.
Through 14 games last season, they had three wins of 19 or more. They had four of 10-16 points, one win was by eight, and then six games were between four or five points. The margins aren’t so stark.
I believe that's because of the offensive style and the mentality it fosters. Boston relied a lot more on the paint and getting offensive rebounds, which allowed them to add a few two-pointers here or there for those comfortable, low double-digit wins.
This year’s style feels a little more all-or-nothing. They're either getting blowouts because shots are falling and they're defending well at the same time, or they're in tight games because they have to fire a super-high volume of shots to make up for the so/so defense they're playing.
I don’t think it’s sustainable this way. I believe in volume, but I also believe in good basketball to get there. I think the numbers show the Celtics need to fine-tune things to make sure they're not opening themselves up to chance. They can control a lot more than they're controlling at the moment, and they need to get back to that eventually if they want to be more consistent as a team.