Shooting Down A Slippery Slope

The Celtics are slipping down a slippery slope with the preponderance of 3 point shots. It's great that they have the ability to score from the '3', but the dependence they have shown on it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Each of the last 3 games the Celtics have had a large advantage in front lines. The Timberwolves, Suns, and Nets do not have the talent or strength in the paint, or depth for that matter. The Celtics in no way should have lost to the Suns or had close games with the Nets and Wolves.

I don't buy what Rivers is saying, and I don't believe Rivers agrees with his own words. The Celtics are not getting to the line as they should, not getting opponents in foul trouble, and getting very few offensive rebounds. I believe every opponent has had more offensive rebounds than the Celtics.

I realize that when you are tired it is easy to settle for 3 pointers, but you have to realize that the Celtics are not tiring anyone out shooting 3s. If I am playing the Celtics I would gladly give them all the 3s they wish to shoot. All that depth does no good if you are not a power or fast-breaking team. The 4th quarter advantage goes from a power Celts team to a disadvantaged 3-point jumpshooting Celts team. Everyone knows that jumpshooting %-ages tend to decrease late in the game.

Run the ball when possible, power the paint, and shoot the 3s when they are there. At least that's the way I see it. Go Celts!@

With the frontline talent and depth the Celtics have, they should power the paint and kick out when availabe, not as

Sd,
I would agree that one would normally think that the C's would handle the Timberwolves and Nets but I would disagree that they in no way should have lost to the Suns. Had they shot better at the foul line it would have been much closer or possibly a win but don't forget the Suns shot the lights out from that very same 3 point line. I think that most teams would have had a hard time coping with that.

This is another instance when the facts and the perception just dont match up.

Last season, without Rasheed - the Celtics shot 1355 3 Pointers in 82 games - for an average of 16.5 per game.

This season with Rasheed and during a stretch of 3 back to backs in 12 days, they shot 154 3 pointers through 8 games, for an average of 19.2 per game.

Last season they shot 39.7% from 3 point land last season, while they are shooting 40.3% this year....so not only are they only taking only 3 more 3 pointers this season vs. last, but they are making them at a better clip.

This is another non issue in my book...sorry.

These last 3 teams did not have a strong frontline. We did not take advantage of the facts that our frontline had more talent, more depth, and more fouls. We will beat the Suns next time by running when possible and playing Celtic power game when fast break is not there.

10 for 47 3 point shooting made the last 3 games much closer than they had a right to be.

We have to use a little more patience and play to our opponent's weaknesses.

Some great points! I hope we correct it in the next game Tomorrow.

112288

SD, what you say resonates with me—but not necessarily with the same emphasis.

I have been concerned, since the first few games of the season (when they were winning big), about their settling for threes. but, in my book, it's what they're NOT doing that's of greater concern.

• They're not developing alternative options: slashing; forcing the ball into the paint, using pick-and-rolls. Those are things they should be defauting to "on demand" when either they're cold from outside or the other team is doing an outstanding job of defending the perimeter.

• As you pointed out, they're not wearing down other teams the way a team with their depth should be doing. Whether it's more running or tougher board work or whatever, other teams' tongues should be handing out when the bench comes in at the end of the third quarter.

• In recent games, they're not doing a good job of defending the perimeter.

I'm writing a lot of this based on reading about the four games I missed while on vacation and studying the stats. (I set my VCR to record all four of those games, and a power outage canceled the recordings.) I'll feel more comfortable about expressing opinions when I see them play their next few games.

But just watching ESPN's play-by-play when they went seven minutes without scoring and jacked up three after three was enough to tell me that this is not a team that's nearly on top of its game. A championship team needs to be able to adjust quickly when matchups go awry or one part of its game isn't working. That's not happening. Maybe part of it's infatuation with the three; maybe part of it's fatigue; but my guess is that this team still has a mountain of work ahead of it in order to take full advantage of all its assets and shift into high gear.

I'm quite confident they'll do it; and, in fact, I was shocked when they appeared to have such great chemistry so early. I'm not sure I wasn't confusing a barrage of successful threes with "great chemistry."

Sam

The Celtics are getting better about points in the paint. Some games they are close to 50%. While this stat has been lanquishing below the index on the stats we have to date, through NOH, I'd be interested to see if we are close to 1.00 or slightly better on the index through last Saturday's game. But when you only have Perk in the middle/side and Kevin lurking near the 3 point line and Sheed behind the three point line, don't expect offensive rebounds to be high on the list.

They are getting PITP from Rondo with easy lay-ups due to the clear-out, modest fast break points from steals, alley-oops/backdoors to KG, SW for a few more plus some foul shots, PP slashing and taking over games, but they are just not doing it in the traditional constant slashing, pick and roll options. Clearly, PITP should be a high number (40-50%) because that's where the basket and the higher percentages are.

I would call the Celtic offense unconventional at this point. Which I like. It's almost counter to what everyone is taught. Go inside, establish the paint. Opens up the 3-pointers. Celtics are almost doing it backwards or at least a combo slanting toward the 3, sharp-shooting three assassins, open up the court for mixing in easy PITP. I kinda like that as well. When the 3's are hitting, no one can figure it out. But it all hinges on the three ball, which sounds eerily like Orlando last season. And their result of last season is unexceptable to us all. Most of our games, the 3 has been on. When you have that many guys that can hit it accurately, 20 3's a game will be the norm. It will be up to Doc and the guys to flip the switch, go inside, get fouled when the 3's aren't falling.

We're talking about the 20% part that needs fixing. 80% of the time, At least 2 of our 3- point assassins (Ray, Paul, Eddie, Rasheed, Scal) per game will be on, shooting 40%+. The occasional games when we can't hit the broadside of the barn (second night of back-to-backs, end of 8 games in 12 days, playing young, running teams, etc.) need to be recognized by Doc sooner rather than later and "re"-develop the inside game, which the opposition has been trained to recognize first and is expecting anyway.

The early open court creates both open threes and PITP for us, which our guys can hit. Hence Rondo and his chippers, untouched. The traditional PITP first just creates a bunch of guys crowding the paint, three seconds, foul shots we can't seem to hit, etc. Only Paul (and occasionally Ray) seemsto know how to complete an And 1, and he only takes over a game when needed.

Sd- I too, must cop to the fact that I haven't been able to see them live so much...in the game with the suns, the feed I had kept going in and out but I did see several times when they attacked the paint and were rewarded for it. In fact, everytime my feed came back it seemed they were attacking the paint, so maybe the BBALL GODS didn't want me to have to see all the ugly 3 pt. misses. Maybe they have fallen into a bad pattern, still they only lost to one team that was hitting 3's almost like they were dunks... I think I read somewhere that Wallace was bemoaning the fact that in that stretch of games they really didn't get much of a chance to "full on" practice much and work through some of the concerns. Maybe this next stretch of games will give us a better handle on how much of a concern this 3 vs. paint really is.

Dbrown,

The advanced stats thread will be updated very shortly. dboss has just about finished putting it all on excel.

I know you've paid close attention to those stats. dboss and I are conversing about how best to utilize them. Your thoughts (as well as anyone else's) would be welcome too.

Sam

Thanks, Sam. I love them as is. Were these ones you and others came up with over time, or have they been around but just not used as much as the traditional box score ones? Are there more or does this just about cover it?

They are definitely very revealing. Over time, you can see what kind of team you have in general but also how you match up game by game, team by team. You've used them in your analysis to point out where we are strong/weak and it has been very insightful.

I think adding to the points in the paint and 3 point percentage contributions mid-range points and free throw points as percentages of total points would be helpful, giving a full spread of where all possible points are coming from for both teams. Since those four cover all possible ways to score, you can derive the mid-range % by subtracting the other three from 1. pretty easy to calculate. Other than that, there is a great amount of info in that current line-up of stats. Great work! db

Dbrown,

Those were "derived" stats I felt might be revealing. A couple were old favorites. Beat suggested the foundation for one, which I rearranged a bit. I'm glad you find them useful.

I do believe that, taken as a series of statistics, they pretty much touch the various statistical facets of the game, but they do so with context that individual stats seldom offer.

The index for each stat would make a nice line graph, with each game plotted against the average index (year-to-date). What I hope to do, over the year, is to look at trends in the Celtics style of play and performance. In lieu of easy graph capabilities on this forum, I hope to present a separate set of indices for each 10-game segment of the Celtics' schedule. That should provide interesting trend data, based on decent sample sizes.

We'll see how it goes. By the end of this evening, the chart will be updated through the first eight games, and I'll add tonight's game tomorrow.

Sam