Look for more 3-pointers from C's this season

Look for more 3-pointers from C's this season
October 10, 2013, 11:00 pm


PHILADELPHIA — With a shortage of bigs and a roster that's long on long-range shooters, it should come as no surprise that the Celtics will be looking to bomb away from 3-point land a lot this season.

That's why when it came to having a 3-point shooting drill on Thursday, Brad Stevens didn't hesitate to have the entire team participate.

Veteran Gerald Wallace said the only team he played for where he remembers something like that happening was in Sacramento.

So when he heard Stevens invite the entire team to participate, he was surprised.

"It did, but we have pretty good shooting bigs," Wallace told reporters at the Celtics' practice facility prior to heading off for the preseason game Friday against Philadelphia that will be played at the University of Delaware. "All our bigs, even Vitor Faverani, can shoot threes. Those guys can spread the floor so it doesn't surprise me that our bigs do the shooting that they do."

While Stevens said not to read too much into the team-wide 3-point shooting contest, there's no mistaking the value that his team will have to place on the 3-ball this year.

Boston doesn't have the size to pound the ball inside often, so scoring for the Celtics has to be generated via slashing to the basket and of course, the 3-point shot.

And while it's still early in the preseason, that practice is indeed being put to use in games and will likely continue throughout the regular season.

The inclusion of big men into the 3-point shooting equation might help explain what's expected to be a sharp rise in 3-point shot attempts under first-year coach Stevens.

In Boston's first two preseason games, the Celtics took 24 3-pointers in each.

That is a significant departure from the 3-point shooting under his predecessor, Doc Rivers.

In his nine seasons with the Celtics, Rivers-coached teams in Boston never shot more than 19.1 three-pointers per game in a single season and never ranked any better than 12th in the league in 3s taken per game. Both of those statistics came in the team's 2008 championship run.

Celtics guard Avery Bradley sees the team's use of the 3-point shot simply playing to what is one of the team's strengths.

"We have stretch fours [power forwards] and fives [centers] that shoot the ball pretty well," Bradley said. "So I think we are going to shoot a lot of threes this year."

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*Sighs* This titled worried me. They don't need threes, they need fastbreak points...

Don't let us down, Brad!  


KJ

You're right about needing easy buckets through fast break points, KJ. But at least equally important may be the fact that, if a team has a three-point mentality, it is likely to suffer at crunch time. Because, when tension is high and you really need a bucket, if your comfort zone is more beyond the arc than within in it, you're going to be shooting a 35%-40% probability of success than a 45%-50% probability of success. Either that or you go out of your comfort zone to move inside.

I've always hated the three-ball and wish any ball shot from beyond the arc would deflate in mid-air. Even when it works to the Celtics' advantage, it's boring. It ignores the beauty of the game's nuances and teamwork. It actually rewards many players from deviating from the aspects of basketball that I believe the basic structure of the game was invented to showcase.

If going for threes is something Brad really wants, I guess I'll have to put up with it and give a mock cheer when the Celtics hit a three. But my heart won't be in it.

Sam

Sam

Sam & all,

question.... not sure if this is a stat that can be found but what % of a teams offensive boards come from the shot originating from three? I have not tried yet to find it.

as we are a bit smaller up front and missed threes tend to bounce further away seems we might be in a position to grab a decent amout of these misses. And I realize the big disadvantage is the other team grabs a long rebound and is off to the races.

beat

The problem with this team ever developing a mindset for shooting threes is the fact that there aren't many perimeter shooters on this team. Even the ones that have 3-pt range aren't going to hit 40% of their threes.

beat,

I do think there may be some truth to that, however, it all comes down to positioning and awareness. Rondo, Sully, and Hump are probably the best when it comes to those two abilities, but even so, that might not be enough. I'm not convinced that the rest of the smaller guys are adept rebounders just yet.


KJ

Good point Beat. Whatever it takes for them to get more rebounds. However, I care particularly about defensive rebounds because they serve multiple purposes: (1) keeping the other team from scoring off their own misses, (2) igniting fast breaks, and (3) even when a fast break's not in the cards, at least earning an offensive possession.

Sam