Celtics Stat of the Day, 12/31/09

Yesterday, Steve4444 posted an interesting entry on the Stat of the Day thread concerning three-pointers. Basically, he commented on the fact that the Celtics’ 3-point shooting percentage has plummeted this season, with
only Paul Pierce shooting the three consistently well.

It’s true that Paul is shooting the bomb exceptionally well. For the three years preceding this one, he was utterly consistent at about 39%:

06-07 .389
07-08 .392
08-09 .391

And to-date this season, he has vaulted to a gaudy .473.

On the other hand, look at the Celtics’ other primary three-point shooters:

Ray Allen:

06-07 .372
07-08 .398
08-09 .409
09-10 .354

Eddie House:

06-07 .429
07-08 .393
08-09 .444
09-10 .359

Rasheed Wallace:

06-07 .351
07-08 .356
08-09 .354
09-10 .289

These are SIGNIFICANT dips. I wish they didn’t matter because, frankly, I don’t like the three-point shot at all. I believe it has seriously disrupted much of the beauty thatwas basketball. But facts are facts and now is now, and these dropoffs DO matter under the circumstances.

Why is Paul Pierce’s three-point percentage way up and the others’ way down? I believe the reason is fairly basic. Paul Pierce Is doing a better job than ever in allowing his three-pointers to emanate naturally from the flow of the
game. Except in dire emergencies, he seldom forces or hurries them. If someone’s rushing at him, he often ducks, lets the guy go by, and shoots unmolested. If the guy doesn’t fly by, Paul pursues another option…often necessarily involving not himself but featuring a teammate…a matter of trust.

Ray and Eddie are sometimes mercurial in their three-point release; and Sheed’s not far behind. For the most part, they’re far more aggressive in seeking out and exploiting three-point opportunities as opposed to capitalizing on what presents itself (as Paul does). The problem is that, when three-point opportunities do not readily present themselves, Ray, Eddie and Sheed have a tendency to force them anyway…and therein lies what I perceive is the problem.

Sometimes the rushed threes fall, and we all remark on the beauty of their quick releases. But all too often, ultra-quick releases mean improper setups and result in serious bricks. I think this is happening more this season than in previous years. Perhaps each ensuing year makes them just a millisecond slower in reaching their spots. Maybe the general speedup in the Celtics’ attack (it IS palpable this season) is making them rush their shots. It could be that all those inside-out passes, as timely as they seem, allow opponents slightly more time to recover on defense than swinging the ball does. (There seems to be less swing of the ball than in previous seasons.)

The fast break presents an especially interesting scenario. Some breaks result in wide-open three-point shots, which they seem to hit with decent regularity. The timing of other breaks seems to be misjudged by Eddie and Sheed in particular; they appear to make the shot decision and then to be surprised by how close opponents really are, with the result being an overly hurried shot.

One of the real downsides of the three-pointer is that misses often lead to long rebounds and enemy points in
transition. A hidden benefit of Pierce’s more deliberate approach is that it is less likely to catch teammates
by surprise. Therefore, there is greater likelihood that other Celtics will be warned that they should position
themselves for an offensive rebound. I can’t prove it, but I’d be willing to bet my season’s tickets (if I
HAD season’s tickets) that a larger percentage of Paul Pierce’s three-point MISSES is rebounded by Celtics than is true of Ray’s, Eddie’s and Sheed’s three-point attempts combined.

In summary, have the following concerns about the Celtics and threes:

• The Celtics may have fallen into the philosophy of taking open three-pointers but may be misjudging what is
“open” and what is not.

• They may be depending, to a certain extent, on spacing the floor with the three-point threat without being
sufficiently consistent in hitting the three so as to maintain the threat.

• They may be considering the three a weapon of opportunity while taking them on more of a free-lance basis than out of planned strategy. than on specific strategy.

I admit that my natural distaste for the three-pointer contributes to my anguish at the Celtics’ frequently untimely rocket launching tendencies this season. But I believe the Celtics may also be contributing to that anguish big-time.

Sam

Sam

Funny you should talk about the threes

Just this morning, in a email to Marcus's coach about the stats I included this:

One other factor is our poor shot selection overall. To date 27% of our field goal attempts are 3's. And we are shooting only 18% from out there.
If we were to remove the threes from our shooting stats we would be 83 for 206 or just over 40%. Which is not bad for a JV team.
The extra point we get from making a three is more than half ofset by our poor percentage. The other factor on missing threes is that they usually lead to long rebounds and advantages of fast breaks for the other team. Plus it is hard to get position to get an offensive rebound on a three.

In our games to date looking at the offensive rebounding, the less threes we take the better we offensive rebound. In the three games we took 11 or less threes we got 38 offensive rebounds.
(30 shots 38 offensive boards)
In the other 3 games that we took more than 11 (13,16,17) 46 total shots we got only 25 offensive rebounds. A full 1/3 less.

Shooting a bit closer give us one more rebounder ie the shooter to grab the offensive rebound. Plus as I mentioned it is also a much higher % shot.

Hope this helps some.

beat

Beat,

Maybe you could just change the figures and send it to Doc. LOL.

Sam

Beat,

I'm impressed that a JV coach has such detailed stats to work with. You're miles ahead of where my son's coaches are. I'm still waiting for our coaches to teach the team how to make a proper entry pass.

Outside

Outside

I've done stats for every team my son has played on even when I coached him (which has only been in baseball and is a whole lot easier to keep stats on than hoops)

We can go back and look at every baseball game he's played and pitched in since he was 6 years old. He's done pretty well all in all averaging over 2 strikeouts per inning pitched.

Along with the shooting three's and rebounding info I also sent his coach some more info regarding the cost of turning the ball over which Marcus's team does all to often. Here is that info:

Coach

Tough loss especially when you battled back to get to within 1, 22-23 after 3.

Again 23 turnovers were about 8 too many, and many of those were just unforced. Told Marcus this morning if we could just get down to 14-16 per game that would have given us 7-9 more possessions and more field goal attempts and 7-9 less for the opposition.

These are somewhat estimated but to date we have had a total of 517 offensive posessions this season:

282 field goal attempts
138 turnovers
63 offensive rebounds
34 foul shot possessions (counting each shot as .5 or 1/2 a possession.67 foul shot attempts)
517 total

we have scored 235 points so therefore are scoring 0.45 points each possession..

Figureing that possessions are exchanged our opponets therefore would have about the same with the only difference being the free throw factor and offensive boards..
With that in mind our opponents have scored 207 points which equates to about a 0.40 point for possession for them.

So for each possession we do not turn the ball over we get +.45 points and allow -.40 points less for the opponents which equates to +.85 of a point for each possession, which is the true cost of each turnover we commit. So rounding .85 up a bit to 1 point in effect if we could have turned the ball over 7 less times last evening we could have won the game by a point.

Hope this makes some sense to you. I like to play with numbers and stats alot.

I really don't think the kids understand just how important a turnover is and what it costs our team and what it gives the other team.

I got this turnover idea right from this forum somewhere and thought it very interesting. Marcus told me the coach went off on them a couple games ago about it and one of the kids said that unless the other team gets a score right on it like on a cross court pass a turnover didn't really cost you anything.

That is in part why I supplied him the true cost of a turnover.

beat

Beat,

You do a fantastic job, and hopefully your son's coach appreciates the effort. My son's coaches are, shall we say, less than receptive to input or help from any parent. I can understand that to a degree since many parents can be overbearing, but it's difficult when you see the team struggle with such basic things as running a press break. So I cheer them on, throw a few pointers my son's way, and hope for the the best. My son enjoys it and it's a good group of kids, so I can't complain too much.

Outside

outside

we've faced a sort of tough situation with Marcus going from a starter to sitting a lot the last 5 games but like last night he got in over 10 minutes and did well, quite well in fact. It's not the stats so much but a lot of small things like boxing out his man so that that person can't get the rebound. Or setting a back screen, A GOOD and solid one, that frees up Jake for an easy layup.

Last night he had to come off his man to pick up penitration down the lane, and of course that left his man wide open yet he was able to get back to his man and bother the shot enough so that the kid missed. Now that will not show up on any stat sheet but it got us the ball back.

It's not always about points and scoring.

I try not to infringe on the coach but we have spoken about his playing situation.

And no matter how you cut it baseball is just around the corner!!

By the way how old is your son and what level is he playing at?

beat

Beat,

Sorry for the slow response. We were out of town for a couple of days.

The son I was referring to is the youngest of our three and plays on the sophomore team. His high school has over 3,000 students, so they're able to support having four teams -- freshman, sophomore, JV, and varsity. My son doesn't start but has earned significant minutes by working hard, especially at the defensive end and in transition. He has limited offensive skills at this point. One area he is expert in is dismissing advice from his dad, but I am able to throw in a suggestion on occasion that he'll listen to.

Like I said earlier, he has lousy coaches but enjoys the game and has a good group of kids on the team, so I cheer him on and encourage him as best I can. They don't win many games, but they did play much better in a tournament between Christmas and New Years, so there's hope. League play starts next week.

Outside