Offensive categories show Stevens, Rivers' differences

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Offensive categories show Stevens, Rivers' differences


February 10, 2016, 6:30 pm










BOSTON – No one will confuse Brad Stevens and Doc Rivers’ offensive coaching style as being one of the same during their time in Boston.

When you start to analyze the data, the differences between the Celtics’ past and present head coaches is especially noticeable when it comes to scoring the ball.

And while Stevens has yet to win at the level of his predecessor here in Boston, there is no mistaking the Celtics are on an upward path to being one of the better teams in the East and their offense – very different from Rivers – will be key.

Here we take a look at some key offensive categories to illustrate how different Stevens and Rivers’ are when it comes to shooting the ball.


FIELD GOAL ATTEMPTS

The Celtics are once again leading the NBA in field goal attempts this season under Stevens, with 89.4 per game. If they can maintain that average, it would be the highest league average since Golden State’s 2007-2008 team took 90.3 shots per game. The Celtics are a team that’s focused on creating great pace on the nightly basis. In doing so, this often leads to a high number of shot attempts.

Meanwhile, Rivers’ teams in Boston weren’t as focused on playing at a fast pace. Instead they were more consumed by getting the highest quality shots which often meant very few opportunities. During his time in Boston, Rivers’ teams averaged just 77.6 shot attempts per game which is significantly fewer than the 86.8 shot attempts per game Boston has averaged in Stevens’ two-plus seasons on the job.


FIELD GOAL PERCENTAGE

Because Boston now shoots a high volume of shots under Stevens, their percentage from the field naturally isn’t going to be all that great. In fact, the Celtics have ranked in the bottom-10 shooting the ball every year under Stevens and are currently ranked 22nd in the NBA.

Under Rivers who as we all know had better scorers (Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen just to name the future Hall of Famers) than Stevens, Boston was a regular among the league’s best shooting teams.

In his nine seasons as the Celtics head coach, Boston finished in the top-6 shooting the ball eight times.


3-POINTERS

The Stevens-coached Celtics have placed a high value on the 3-point shot from Day One. They’re currently ranked 7th in the NBA with 27 3-point attempts per game. While they don’t rank nearly as high in 3s made (10th, 9.1 per game), the 3-pointer is a weapon that has given them a chance to be one of the better teams in the Eastern Conference due to its positive impact – most nights anyway – on helping space the floor.

Rivers’ Celtics teams were built to play more inside-out (with a greater emphasis on ‘in’) due to the personnel and the advantage that they had in the frontcourt most nights.

Because those Celtics were a more physical, grind-it-out group, the 3-pointer wasn’t nearly as important a weapon for them to need in order to be successful. During his time in Boston, Rivers’ teams averaged 16.2 3s per game.

Just to put that in perspective, shooting that few 3s this season would rank 28th in the league.



bob
MY NOTE:  Doc had the luxury of having 3 future HOFers on his roster.  Brad doesn't.  How/what would Brad do if he had Doc's championship team?  My gut tells me he'd do fine.  How would Doc do with the teams Danny has given Brad the last 2 1/2 years?  Well, before 2007, Doc had a stretch where he had Big Al, Pierce, Perk, Rondo, Tony Allen, Wally and West.  A team with 2 good players, Pierce and Al, and a bunch of youth (Rondo was a rookie, TA had 2 years, Perk had 3 and 22 years old, West had 2).  Pierce went down with an injury and we went on a franchise-record losing streak and ended the year with 24 wins.  Brad has had his roster churned like butter for 2 years, this is the first year where he has had some stability with who he is coaching, and he has us 3rd in the EC and still with a very young roster.  Even last year he got us to 40 wins with Danny flipping players like he worked in the kitchen at House of Pancakes and they were flapjacks.  When Doc's roster was shit, he got shitty results.  When Brad's roster sucked he needed a year to learn the difference between college and the NBA (1 year!) and then powered through it.  Doc is old school, Brad is new school and the path forward to #18 must be via new school, because that's the reality of today's NBA.

If we can improve our fg%, from anywhere on the floor, I'm talking about overall team fg% including 2s and 3s, by just a few decimal points we will see a big difference precisely because Brad's system is getting us more fgas.


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I don't want to take shots at Doc, because he did a good job of handling the big personalities on those Pierce-Garnett-Allen teams. That is Doc's sterngth - he was great at it, and since Brad has yet to face such a locker room, we can't comment on how well he would have done with those line ups. However, I still believe that given the talent on those teams, they should have won more than one. I partially blame Doc for the fact that they didn't.

Regarding the reverse - how Doc would do with this group - I agree with Bob. Would have been a disaster....

Both Rivers and Stevens are very good coaches, but certainly not with all of the very same characteristics.

Rivers has worked very well with older teams and Stevens has been super with his only (and very young) team. I have liked watching both of them while parts of the Celtics.