The Celtics shot profile has changed. Their philosophy has not.
The Celtics are third in the NBA in mid-range field goal attempts, taking nearly five more than they did last season, when they were last. They have come at the expense of the shot people thought Joe Mazzulla loved more than anything, 3-pointers.
The Celtics are last in corner 3-pointers attempted, taking three fewer than last season. They still lead the league in above-the-break 3-pointers, but they're even taking two fewer there.
Mazzulla had insisted from the beginning that he never preached 3-pointers over any other shot. He said what he has always said about his offense; that what he wanted his players to do was create advantages and make the right reads when they did. Whatever good shots those led to didn’t matter.
It just so happened that Boston had five guys who could take, and make, 3-pointers at a good clip in their starting lineup. Then they brought three guys off the bench who were pretty good at making them, too. The advantages Boston created naturally led to 3-point attempts.
Of course, there were some nights where the Celtics fell in love with the shot. There were some when it got a little excessive. But by-and-large, the shots Boston took were the product of the mentality Mazzulla preached.
This year’s team is built a bit differently, and the guys who remain after the summer contract purge have found that certain adjustments were necessary to be effective. In particular, Jaylen Brown and Payton Pritchard have found new homes in 2-point land, and the Celtics offense is thriving.
Both Brown and Pritchard have more than doubled their mid-range attempts from last season. Pritchard has quadrupled his non-restricted paint attempts. Both were on display against the Indiana Pacers, especially in the second quarter as Boston flipped an 11-point deficit to a 14-point lead.
“I was just getting to my spots,” Pritchard told reporters after the win. “Those areas on the court, I’m very efficient at, so just getting to those spots, taking what they give me.”
Pritchard and Brown combined to take 14 shots in the second, making 10, but they shot 8-10 in the mid-range and non-restricted paint area. The Pacers, like most teams, are trying to force teams away from the 3-point line and into what has typically been an inefficient shot. For Brown and Pritchard, it’s been anything but.
Brown is hitting about half of his mid-range shots, which is right at where he needs to be to still put up efficient scoring numbers. Pritchard is one of the best in the league in the paint non-restricted area. And both are using their ability to shoot and drive to open up the mid-range for good looks and easy makes.
The result is an offensive rating of 121.4, now good for second in the NBA and two points higher than last season’s offensive rating.
The Celtics are playing a different style of basketball, but Mazzulla would tell you that core principles are the same, because that's what he has always said.
“Everything just comes down to two-on-ones, how we're creating the two-on-one, how we're being defended, and what the execution looks like versus that defense,” Mazzulla said back in October, when he told us to expect something different. “Shot profile will obviously change a little bit because of the roster, but also change based on the coverage, based on the team that you're playing against, based on who you have out there at the time. So it's an ever flowing thing, at the end of the day, it always comes down to how can you create two-on-ones? How can you create the best possible shot on each possession? And then you got to try to take advantage of that.”
This is what ‘Mazzulla Ball’ always was, and always will be. Some nights it will result in a lot of 3-pointers. On others, it will be mostly 2s. Against the Pacers Friday night, it was a bit of both thanks to some hot shooting.
But Boston only shot 39 3-pointers, and three of them came as Brown was hunting a 30-piece before getting subbed out. A fourth was a blatant Sam Hauser heat check, which he earned but really wasn’t part of the offense.
The Celtics are still third in 3-point attempts. They aren’t just giving those up. But their scheme was never to exclusively chase those, either. They will take plenty of those because their offense will naturally create those opportunities. But what we saw in Indiana Friday night was the clearest vindication of what ‘Mazzulla Ball’ was always meant to be.
How do they create advantages, how do they react to those, and how can it result in a great shot? It’s up to the defense to make the choice, and then up to Boston to make them pay for whatever decision that is. It doesn’t matter if it’s a shot behind a certain line, inside it, or standing on a part of the floor that's a different color.
This team is playing to the strengths of its best players, and this is where it’s taking them. ‘Mazzulla Ball’ is the guiding principle, not some blueprint to be memorized and robotically followed.
“It's a muscle memory on awareness and understanding,” Mazzulla recently said. “You may run the same play five times, they may guard it three different ways of those five times, so you have to run the same play differently to get what you want out of that.”
And all they want is a good shot, which is what they got plenty of all over the floor in Indy.