General Celtics thread: 24-25 edition

Euclis20

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Celtics 3PAs by month vs Opponents 3PAs by month:

October - 51.6 vs 34.8
November - 50.4 vs 35.6
December - 50.0 vs 36.9
January - 43.7 vs 38.8

Celtics 3P% by month vs Opponents 3P% by month:

October - .407 vs .316
November - .367 vs .353
December - .354 vs .356
January - .328 vs .412

It's a slow progression with plenty of noise and it doesn't answer the obvious question (why/how), but it's jarring to note that while Celtics 3PA AND 3P% have gone down every single month, Celtics opponents 3PA AND 3P% have gone up every single month. Something has to give.
 

lovegtm

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When I say "variance", I don't mean "everything should be at a team's exact 3%"

I mean
"The Celtics have a long stretch of shooting 27%, during which they probably could have gotten somewhat better looks and be expected to shoot 38%, but were unlucky to not shoot 35-36%"

and

"due to scheme/effort their opponents got better looks than normal and probably should have shot 37-38%, but instead shot 41%+"

The thing is, having either of those numbers be closer to expected shot value would have DRASTICALLY changed results and perception the past few weeks, even if Boston could have played better.
Sure @kieckeredinthehead , I agree that my goalposts were getting somewhat shifty, so I fixed them here.
 

SteveF

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Looks like the average % of 3PA that are wide open is roughly 50% and the Celtics have been in the 52%-53% range in every month except October. Teams shoot roughly 39% on wide open 3s.
Obviously the volume of 3PA allowed has also gone up (that's an objective fact). Some of that volume relative to other teams is a product of how the Celtics play -- they allow more FGAs than the average team as a result of not giving up as many FTAs and generating a below average number of turnovers. Maybe some of it is a strategic choice about defending the rim/allowing some players to shoot AB3s or a result of getting cracked off the dribble and having to help more.

Hard to really give explanations without veering into storytelling.

3PA/100 league average by month: 36.97, 38.09, 37.87, 38.23. So basically the same since the end of October.
 
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lovegtm

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Looks like the average % of 3PA that are wide open is roughly 50% and the Celtics have been in the 52%-53% range in every month except October. Teams shoot roughly 39% on wide open 3s.
Obviously the volume of 3PA allowed has also gone up (that's an objective fact, Edit: and I think true leaguewide). Some of that volume relative to other teams is a product of how the Celtics play -- they allow more FGAs than the average team as a result of not giving up as many FTAs and generating a below average number of turnovers. Maybe some of it is a strategic choice about defending the rim/allowing some players to shoot AB3s or a result of getting cracked off the dribble and having to help more.

Hard to really give explanations without veering into storytelling.
The fact that teams shoot 39% on wide open 3s, but are shooting 41.5% against Boston on overall 3s recently, makes the case pretty strongly that this is a really bad variance stretch for Boston.
 

Neil Ave

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Lurker joining the conversation to offer my two cents. Up thread, someone referenced a similar stretch last season around the same time. I'm inclined to think it's just that - a slump. They're not playing well, which I mean broadly -- not moving/screening/passing/shooting/defending crisply -- and it all adds up to what we're seeing now. Last season, they snapped out of it and reeled off nine in a row and pretty much rolled the rest of the way. My guess is something similar happens this season.

HOWEVER ... there is a non-zero chance this is a post-banner hangover and more lasting malaise. My guess is Brad Stevens is watching it all closely to see which it is, because if it is something that persists, I wouldn't put it past him to make a shake-it-up deal at the deadline. I don't think he'd do anything with the starting five, but could I see him move a Hauser for a different look and to get everyone's attention? Sure, I could see that. He was quoted before the season saying he thought there was some risk in bringing the whole roster back but that they'd "earned" the opportunity. If he looks at it now, decides they've been given a chance, I don't think we should be shocked if he makes a move to sort of deliver a shock to the team's system.

Great conversation here.
 

kieckeredinthehead

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I'll try to keep this short, but bear with me. I think there's three (non-exclusive) hypotheses here: (1) by random chance, opponents are scoring more against the Celtics; (2) opponents are making more 3's because the Celtics defense has slacked off (or they've made a conscious decision to defend the rim and give up more looks at the perimeter, which I personally think goes against the very core of Mazzulaball, but I'll include that here because the two are indistinguishable in the data I'm using); (3) opponents are making more 3's because they're taking more 3's, in an attempt to out math the math kings.

So, two points. First, as I said in my earlier post, Celtics opponents have gone from attempting 16 wide open 3s in October to 20 wide open 3s in January. That could just be because they're attempting more 3's overall, and indeed as @Euclis20 posted (thanks for pulling those data), opponent attempts have gone up from ~35/game to 39/game - consistent with hypothesis 3. As a percentage of total 3 PAs, opponents' wide open 3's have gone from 46% to 52%, consistent with hypothesis 2. (Actually, it shot up to 52% of all attempts in November and has stayed there in December and January). The point stands: compared to the beginning of the season, opponents are taking 4 more open 3's per game, which represents a structural change in how opponents are strategizing against the Celtics and/or how the Celtics defense is working right now.

Second, we can do a very simple linear regression to look at the change in 3PA, 3P, and 3P% since the beginning of the season:

94729

The circles are the observed 3P% by game, the line is the trend over time. The distance from the trend-line is a more quantitative estimate of game-to-game shooting variance @lovegtm is talking about (all else being equal), and indeed the Pelicans were lucky. At the same time, opponents' 3P% has gone up about 6 percentage points from the beginning of the season. That's not random, consistent with hypothesis 2. The attempts have also gone up, about 3.7 more per game since the beginning of the season, consistent with hypothesis 3.

Put it all together: opponents are taking almost 4 more 3's per game now than they were at the beginning of the season, they're making them about 6 percentage points more, resulting in about 3.6 more made 3's per game. And, just looking at January, MIN, OKC and NOP were pretty lucky to make the number they did. So, I kind of think it's a little bit of all three arguments. To say nothing of whatever's going on with the Celtics' offense.
 

InstaFace

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eyeballing it based on the spread and slope, that looks like an r^2 of like 0.20-ish, no? Might be 0.30, but I'd be surprised if it's much higher. If so, progression of the season (team wearing down / losing focus / KP returning) would thus explain roughly 20-30% of the game-to-game variation in opponent 3P%, yes? With much of the rest being explained by random variation, aka "that's how a stochastic process works, some are high some are low".

That's not nothing, but I'm not sure it amounts to sufficient reason to worry or (say) conclude that the team is worse than last year.
 

lovegtm

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Any possibility to the idea that BOS missing so many 3Ps is leading to open or wide-open 3Ps on the other end in transition?
I think it's probably actually that Boston is taking fewer 3s, and taking more forced 2s into help, which then leads to a couple more runouts a game.

One of the worst things happening to the offense right now is that they're letting the missed (quality, in many cases) 3s get in their heads, and taking fewer attempts there, fewer kickouts, more forced shots.
 

lovegtm

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I'll try to keep this short, but bear with me. I think there's three (non-exclusive) hypotheses here: (1) by random chance, opponents are scoring more against the Celtics; (2) opponents are making more 3's because the Celtics defense has slacked off (or they've made a conscious decision to defend the rim and give up more looks at the perimeter, which I personally think goes against the very core of Mazzulaball, but I'll include that here because the two are indistinguishable in the data I'm using); (3) opponents are making more 3's because they're taking more 3's, in an attempt to out math the math kings.

So, two points. First, as I said in my earlier post, Celtics opponents have gone from attempting 16 wide open 3s in October to 20 wide open 3s in January. That could just be because they're attempting more 3's overall, and indeed as @Euclis20 posted (thanks for pulling those data), opponent attempts have gone up from ~35/game to 39/game - consistent with hypothesis 3. As a percentage of total 3 PAs, opponents' wide open 3's have gone from 46% to 52%, consistent with hypothesis 2. (Actually, it shot up to 52% of all attempts in November and has stayed there in December and January). The point stands: compared to the beginning of the season, opponents are taking 4 more open 3's per game, which represents a structural change in how opponents are strategizing against the Celtics and/or how the Celtics defense is working right now.

Second, we can do a very simple linear regression to look at the change in 3PA, 3P, and 3P% since the beginning of the season:

View attachment 94729

The circles are the observed 3P% by game, the line is the trend over time. The distance from the trend-line is a more quantitative estimate of game-to-game shooting variance @lovegtm is talking about (all else being equal), and indeed the Pelicans were lucky. At the same time, opponents' 3P% has gone up about 6 percentage points from the beginning of the season. That's not random, consistent with hypothesis 2. The attempts have also gone up, about 3.7 more per game since the beginning of the season, consistent with hypothesis 3.

Put it all together: opponents are taking almost 4 more 3's per game now than they were at the beginning of the season, they're making them about 6 percentage points more, resulting in about 3.6 more made 3's per game. And, just looking at January, MIN, OKC and NOP were pretty lucky to make the number they did. So, I kind of think it's a little bit of all three arguments. To say nothing of whatever's going on with the Celtics' offense.
Good summary. I agree that it's somewhat of all 3, although I think opponents shooting 6 points over what they did early in the year is probably somewhat unsustainable.

Wrt a "conscious effort to give up 3s": they definitely sag systematically off certain shooters ATB. That's always been a thing of Mazzulla's, and was an early discovery of Bud's Buck teams.

For the corner 3s and opens to better shooters, which they do want to take away: to my memory, a lot of that is KP. He just lets them happen too often, and is too eager to help off his man into the paint, even though he's ok at recovering when blown by.
 

HomeRunBaker

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The fact that teams shoot 39% on wide open 3s, but are shooting 41.5% against Boston on overall 3s recently, makes the case pretty strongly that this is a really bad variance stretch for Boston.
This small of a difference can probably be attributed to teams bringing their A-games in being more mentally prepared to play against Boston than others. Seems like a normal result for this reason.
 

lovegtm

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This small of a difference can probably be attributed to teams bringing their A-games in being more mentally prepared to play against Boston than others. Seems like a normal result for this reason.
Sorry, I should have posted more clearly: that's not a small difference!

I was comparing *wide-open* 3s to *all* 3s.

Cs have been allowing 41.5% on all 3s, when 39% is the league average only on wide-open ones.
 

Euclis20

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Sorry, I should have posted more clearly: that's not a small difference!

I was comparing *wide-open* 3s to *all* 3s.

Cs have been allowing 41.5% on all 3s, when 39% is the league average only on wide-open ones.
Some additional context, the worst 3P% allowed this year is .384 (Atlanta).
 

kieckeredinthehead

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eyeballing it based on the spread and slope, that looks like an r^2 of like 0.20-ish, no? Might be 0.30, but I'd be surprised if it's much higher. If so, progression of the season (team wearing down / losing focus / KP returning) would thus explain roughly 20-30% of the game-to-game variation in opponent 3P%, yes? With much of the rest being explained by random variation, aka "that's how a stochastic process works, some are high some are low".

That's not nothing, but I'm not sure it amounts to sufficient reason to worry or (say) conclude that the team is worse than last year.
The rest of it isn't all random variation like I originally said - it's all the other stuff, both measurable and measurable, that I didn't bother including plus the stochasticity. So, stuff like: opponent quality, opponent player availability, home vs. away, Celtics player availability, who's sick, what the teams' travel schedules have looked like, what proportion of the 3's taken were defended, who the primary defender was, etc. etc. As I've argued (a bunch) elsewhere, there's shot to shot variation and there's also game to game variation. We have a lot of additional data we could pull on to explain more of that, I just don't have the time/energy to do it - although we do it in a much more qualitative way all the time. Like, was it a good idea to leave Javonte Green wide open in the corner? TBH, I was pretty surprised there was this much of an effect of just game number on all three of 3P/3PA/3P%, given I'm not controlling for all that other stuff. And for full disclosure, I also tried a piecewise regression to see if there was a meaningful difference in trend before / after KP returned, and there wasn't anything there.

The team looked like the same wagon from last year the first few months, they were so fun to watch. That's settled down considerably the last month or so. I wouldn't say I'm personally worried or concluding the team is worse. But when they lost to Memphis on 12/7 and the Grizzlies shot 46% from 3, I was like - bummer, they got lucky. Then they lost to Philly on Christmas, who shot 43% - shit happens. Then Indy, and Minnesota, OKC, and New Orleans all shot way above their season average...I was all on board team variance. The game on Sunday was the first time I specifically was paying attention to how they were defending the 3, and I feel like there was a pretty lazy effort, mostly mental, with a side of Porzingis awkwardly fitting back into the scheme and possibly somewhat physically limited. A lot of it looked like Jrue's fault - although I can't tell if that's him making the right read and his teammate missing the switch or whatever. But there's a lot of plays where he leaves his man, and that guy immediately gets the ball and swishes a wide open 3.

Here's an example when Murray scored his 17th point of the 1st quarter. Yeah, sometimes shots go in, but the Celtics should have a defender closer to Murray on this play. If you're going to leave a man, ignore Theis at the break. I'm not sure what the scheme is. Horford and Tatum are already doubling Zion, but KP is shading toward the paint, leaving Jrue on McCollum and Murray, and Pritchard on Hawkins and Theis. Jrue sort of halfheartedly stays on CJ, which leaves Pritchard the only closing out on Murray's wide open 3. Hopefully somebody with better basketball acumen can break it down.

It's something to watch going forward, but also totally fixable. I think they're quite capable of picking it up when the games matter.
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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Here's an example when Murray scored his 17th point of the 1st quarter. Yeah, sometimes shots go in, but the Celtics should have a defender closer to Murray on this play. If you're going to leave a man, ignore Theis at the break. I'm not sure what the scheme is. Horford and Tatum are already doubling Zion, but KP is shading toward the paint, leaving Jrue on McCollum and Murray, and Pritchard on Hawkins and Theis. Jrue sort of halfheartedly stays on CJ, which leaves Pritchard the only closing out on Murray's wide open 3. Hopefully somebody with better basketball acumen can break it down.
Seems to me that the coverage is pretty simple. Zion has Al in the post; JT is in a soft double taking away Zion's left hand. McCallum is the closest person to Zion and he's the last person the Cs want shooting so Jrue is shaded to him.

That leaves PP and KP to guard the other three players. KP is protecting the rim. Hawkins was shooting something like 30% on 3Ps; Murray was shooting 26%; and we're all aware of The Is's 3P shooting. Here's the defense as the pass was being made.

94740

I think they obviously want to take away: (1) Zion driving; (2) CJ shooting; (3) corner 3P; and (4) anything at the rim. They are going to give up either a Murray or Theis 3P. And they do.

You said that Cs should have had a defender closer to Murray. I presume you mean KP, since PP is taking away the corner 3P. Could KP be a step closer to Murray? Maybe - but there are two possibilities here. (1) KP is where the coaching staff wanted him to be, so it's just a decision they have to live with or (2) KP is not where the coaching staff wants to be, at which point they just have to correct it. I think at this point in the game, even though Murray had made a couple of 3Ps already, they were probably still okay with him taking ATB 3Ps.

You can't stop everything. Again, CJ went 1-6 from 3P (and I already went through Murphy's 3Ps) so they weren't doing everything wrong.
 

lovegtm

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Seems to me that the coverage is pretty simple. Zion has Al in the post; JT is in a soft double taking away Zion's left hand. McCallum is the closest person to Zion and he's the last person the Cs want shooting so Jrue is shaded to him.

That leaves PP and KP to guard the other three players. KP is protecting the rim. Hawkins was shooting something like 30% on 3Ps; Murray was shooting 26%; and we're all aware of The Is's 3P shooting. Here's the defense as the pass was being made.

View attachment 94740

I think they obviously want to take away: (1) Zion driving; (2) CJ shooting; (3) corner 3P; and (4) anything at the rim. They are going to give up either a Murray or Theis 3P. And they do.

You said that Cs should have had a defender closer to Murray. I presume you mean KP, since PP is taking away the corner 3P. Could KP be a step closer to Murray? Maybe - but there are two possibilities here. (1) KP is where the coaching staff wanted him to be, so it's just a decision they have to live with or (2) KP is not where the coaching staff wants to be, at which point they just have to correct it. I think at this point in the game, even though Murray had made a couple of 3Ps already, they were probably still okay with him taking ATB 3Ps.

You can't stop everything. Again, CJ went 1-6 from 3P (and I already went through Murphy's 3Ps) so they weren't doing everything wrong.
Is there a reason for not wanting Murray to take ATB 3s, with late closeouts, that isn't completely results-oriented?

I'm reasonably confident that if we said before the game that that was the gameplan, everyone would have been fine with it.

Sometimes guys make shots. You have to choose things to give up, in the NBA.

(I'm not talking about some of the Celtics' other issues in allowing and not generating 3s recently; just about Murray.)
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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Is there a reason for not wanting Murray to take ATB 3s, with late closeouts, that isn't completely results-oriented?

I'm reasonably confident that if we said before the game that that was the gameplan, everyone would have been fine with it.

Sometimes guys make shots. You have to choose things to give up, in the NBA.

(I'm not talking about some of the Celtics' other issues in allowing and not generating 3s recently; just about Murray.)
CJM has talked about "expected points" a bit this year (e.g.,) so I presume the Cs have a metric that measures where and to whom they want to give up shots. Giving up 3Ps to RWB and having him shoot what 4-7 or giving up 3Ps to a 26% shooter in Murray (even if he shoots 6-9 or whatever he shot) seems like smart strategy.

Since this is the Cs thread I think the biggest issue is that the starting lineup has been outscored by almost 9 points per 100 possessions - although only 138 minutes (cite) - adn results that bad are probably a combination of bad luck, bad shooting, TOs, poor transition defense, and everything else. It's particularly remarkable since the same group with Al instead of KP are blitzing opponents (+21.9 points per 100 possessions). Given those numbers, I would guess it's not scheme.

But as someone pointed out on a podcast recently (think it was Hoop Collective), the Cs are 6 games back of CLE; 3 games up on NYK, so they are probably locked into the 2 spot (they're 6 games up on ORL so they would be no worse than 3). So even as of January, there's not a lot to play for during this regular season - other than health and cohesion.

Interesting place to be.
 

Eddie Jurak

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Karalis in an article about Boston's offensive struggles, pointed to a few different things:

https://www.bostonsportsjournal.com/2025/01/14/whats-wrong-with-the-celtics-offense-a-deep-dive-into-their-recent-dry-spell
  • Taking more shots in the paint and fewer threes
  • Most of their 3 point shooters have regressed from last season and/or earlier in this season
  • Unassisted field goals are up 4.4%, unassisted threes are up 7.2%; Tatum, Brown, White, and Pritchard are all taking more unassisted shots and fewer assisted
  • They are forcing more shots in the paint - they have gone from 4.6 tightly constested shots in the pain per game to 6.8, which leads to more misses and more transition for the other team
  • Early in the season, Boston was getting savaged in the paint but defending the 3 point line well. Now, with KP back and a lot more 2-big lineups, they are defending the paint better but giving up a ton of open and wide open threes
I think the collapse of ball movement, which has gotten so bad that even White and Pritchard are playijng hero ball now, and the defense's inability to guard out to the 3 point line are what is doing them in.
 

jezza1918

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Karalis in an article about Boston's offensive struggles, pointed to a few different things:

https://www.bostonsportsjournal.com/2025/01/14/whats-wrong-with-the-celtics-offense-a-deep-dive-into-their-recent-dry-spell
  • Taking more shots in the paint and fewer threes
  • Most of their 3 point shooters have regressed from last season and/or earlier in this season
  • Unassisted field goals are up 4.4%, unassisted threes are up 7.2%; Tatum, Brown, White, and Pritchard are all taking more unassisted shots and fewer assisted
  • They are forcing more shots in the paint - they have gone from 4.6 tightly constested shots in the pain per game to 6.8, which leads to more misses and more transition for the other team
  • Early in the season, Boston was getting savaged in the paint but defending the 3 point line well. Now, with KP back and a lot more 2-big lineups, they are defending the paint better but giving up a ton of open and wide open threes
I think the collapse of ball movement, which has gotten so bad that even White and Pritchard are playijng hero ball now, and the defense's inability to guard out to the 3 point line are what is doing them in.
Thanks for the synopsis. Question for you, or other people who know more about this sport than I do - regarding the two bolded statements how much do they go hand in hand? As in, if they give up a made 3 point shot it stands to reason the other teams D has a better chance of getting and hurting Boston's chance at better ball movement/better shots correct? And it's a bit of a chicken/egg thing right? If so, it seems like Celtics should prioritize the D thing and let the offense/ball movement thing flow from there...
 

lovegtm

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Karalis in an article about Boston's offensive struggles, pointed to a few different things:

https://www.bostonsportsjournal.com/2025/01/14/whats-wrong-with-the-celtics-offense-a-deep-dive-into-their-recent-dry-spell
  • Taking more shots in the paint and fewer threes
  • Most of their 3 point shooters have regressed from last season and/or earlier in this season
  • Unassisted field goals are up 4.4%, unassisted threes are up 7.2%; Tatum, Brown, White, and Pritchard are all taking more unassisted shots and fewer assisted
  • They are forcing more shots in the paint - they have gone from 4.6 tightly constested shots in the pain per game to 6.8, which leads to more misses and more transition for the other team
  • Early in the season, Boston was getting savaged in the paint but defending the 3 point line well. Now, with KP back and a lot more 2-big lineups, they are defending the paint better but giving up a ton of open and wide open threes
I think the collapse of ball movement, which has gotten so bad that even White and Pritchard are playijng hero ball now, and the defense's inability to guard out to the 3 point line are what is doing them in.
Whenever I see additional tightly contested shots in the paint, or hero ball, I almost always think "ah shit, there's a team that is letting bad 3-point variance get in its head, and is trying to 'do something different' ".
 

Eddie Jurak

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Whenever I see additional tightly contested shots in the paint, or hero ball, I almost always think "ah shit, there's a team that is letting bad 3-point variance get in its head, and is trying to 'do something different' ".
That would not explain other stuff, like taking more unassisted threes.
 

RorschachsMask

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Uh lol.

I think it may be time to be mildly concerned. I’m not worried, but something seems to be off.

The POA defense is absolutely dreadful, pretty much across the board.
 
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Auger34

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Uh lol.

I think it may be time to be mildly concerned. I’m not worried, but something seems to be off.
Yeah, I was coming to the board to see what people had to say. Still not concerned but maybe like 5% worried as opposed to 0 before tonight?
 

RorschachsMask

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Yeah, I was coming to the board to see what people had to say. Still not concerned but maybe like 5% worried as opposed to 0 before tonight?
First off I should say, it’s really fucking hard to repeat lol. They’ve also had pretty crap injury luck, which plays into the first point.

I am not an overreacting guy, especially with the regular season. That said, they aren’t even close to where they need to be as of this moment.
 

lovegtm

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Uh lol.

I think it may be time to be mildly concerned. I’m not worried, but something seems to be off.

The POA defense is absolutely dreadful, pretty much across the board.
Yeah, I'm pretty concerned. Something is very off.

They're a collection of pretty good players now, as opposed to a machine on both ends. They're not consistently winning the shot quality battle on every possession the way they used to.
 

Auger34

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First off I should say, it’s really fucking hard to repeat lol. They’ve also had pretty crap injury luck, which plays into the first point.

I am not an overreacting guy, especially with the regular season. That said, they aren’t even close to where they need to be as of this moment.
Also important to remember that they are basically guaranteed a top 3 seed in the East (likely 2nd), so we definitely aren’t anywhere close to disaster mode
 

Euclis20

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It's feeling more and more that they won't pull themselves out of their current malaise anytime soon. Maybe a couple hot weeks from 3 changes things (and they've hit 40% on back to back games just once in their last 20 games, something they did 15+ times last year), but kinda feels like either they'll snap out of it in the playoffs, or they won't. If they aren't feeling the urgency now, why would they in March?
 

RorschachsMask

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Yeah, I'm pretty concerned. Something is very off.

They're a collection of pretty good players now, as opposed to a machine on both ends. They're not consistently winning the shot quality battle on every possession the way they used to.
You and I are the leaders of not really caring about regular season, so that’s telling lol.Tatum is in a shooting slump, White is somewhere way past a shooting slump, Jaylen is just really struggling with efficiency in general. They’ve all sucked defensively lol, nobody on this team is close to deserving all defense IMO.

There’s definitely some fatigue/injury stuff, and I’m sure guys are trying to preserve themselves, but they just don’t look the part right now.
 

lovegtm

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You and I are the leaders of not really caring about regular season, so that’s telling lol.Tatum is in a shooting slump, White is somewhere way past a shooting slump, Jaylen is just really struggling with efficiency in general. They’ve all sucked defensively lol, nobody on this team is close to deserving all defense IMO.

There’s definitely some fatigue/injury stuff, and I’m sure guys are trying to preserve themselves, but they just don’t look the part right now.
Right, so here's what I think it is:

There's a kind of "not caring about the regular season" that's good, and obvious when you watch it.

You play a deep rotation, you execute your stuff and know who you are, but you don't really hit the gas. Then you hit the gas towards the end, maybe you win, maybe you lose, but it's clear the team knows what it is.

Right now, the Celtics do not know what they are. They did know what they were through the first 25 or so games. They weren't lighting the world on fire from 3, but they were consistently executing their stuff, winning the shot quality battle, and turning up the heat late in games and in big games.

I'm not sure where that went, but I have to trace it to KP's return at this point. I guess that's good? Because it might be fixable, with another 40 games of chemistry.
 

Jakarta

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I’m annoyed but not yet concerned. We are less than a month from the ASB. Just need to stay healthy and not fully collapse until then. Hopefully only Tatum makes the team, the others can get some rest. If they are still playing like this in mid-March, I will be concerned.
 

Petagine in a Bottle

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As frustrating as this stretch has been, it doesn’t seem terribly uncommon- Knicks, Grizz, Magic, Bucks are all kind of going through it right now. Not super comforting, I guess and definitely concerned but it is just about the midpoint of what is a long season for a team that really hasn’t had a consistent group together for much of it- and may never will and is probably struggling to find motivation a bit.

But I don’t think there’s a need to panic and make any moves. These guys may not and probably will not repeat but I still like their chances better than most.
 

RorschachsMask

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I’m annoyed but not yet concerned. We are less than a month from the ASB. Just need to stay healthy and not fully collapse until then. Hopefully only Tatum makes the team, the others can get some rest. If they are still playing like this in mid-March, I will be concerned.
I think there’s a real chance only Tatum makes it, which I’d have put somewhere around 5% going into the season.
 

Tony C

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First off I should say, it’s really fucking hard to repeat lol. They’ve also had pretty crap injury luck, which plays into the first point.

I am not an overreacting guy, especially with the regular season. That said, they aren’t even close to where they need to be as of this moment.
What crap injury luck? BB index shows the Celts as having had below average injuries. They’ve had good luck in that regard.
 

Light-Tower-Power

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Porzingis and Hauser have me most worried. They’ve pretty obviously been worse with KP on the floor than without him and the record since his return bears that out. I don’t know if it’s just chemistry issues or what, but to my eye he’s a few steps slow especially on the defensive end. Same goes for Hauser. He looks several steps slow and is missing a lot of shots short, which makes me worried his back is not in good shape.
 

RorschachsMask

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I'm not sure I want to see any more minutes from that crew ;)

JB/White are slumping, they'll play out of it eventually.
Tatum down to a 59.8% TS, White 59.5%, Jaylen 54.8%, Jrue 57.5, KP 58.9%.

I would not have predicted that would be the case halfway into the season lol. While I always say individual efficiency is overrated, the whole starting five being less efficient (by a fair amount) than last season is not a great thing.

It matches the eye test, the spacing has been pretty funky, on top of guys just shooting poorly.
 

MyDaughterLovesTomGordon

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I think KP just blows the D up completely. The Barnes isos on him in the 3rd were sad.

And he just never passes out of the post. He gets the ball, “goes to work,” and everyone stands around until something happens.

But it can also be true that the team just doesn’t have the vibes right now. FT shooting is in the tank, the Pritch missed three from the corner in the fourth, coming off back to back open corner misses from Jrue. Just no confidence, no joy, no juice.

I think it’s something they can pull out of, but I think KP should come off the bench for a while, with Al in the closing lineup.
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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Just no confidence, no joy, no juice.
Seems to me that they aren't playing with any emotion. I mean JT reacted for a bit when Barnes clapped in his face but not much afterwards.

Are any of the Olympic folks playing well? Ant I guess and KD when he's healthy. But Bam, Booker, JT, DW, and Jrue are definitely having down years thus far.

One thing I think I've noticed - they are not scoring many points in transition. Seems like they aren't getting as many easy buckets as they did last year. Some of it probably has to do with point of attack ball pressure (as noted above and by Scal). Last year, they 9th in points per game in transition according to NBA.com; this year they are 10th from bottom and I'm sure it's been worse in this stretch over the last 12 or so games.
 

lovegtm

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Tatum down to a 59.8% TS, White 59.5%, Jaylen 54.8%, Jrue 57.5, KP 58.9%.

I would not have predicted that would be the case halfway into the season lol. While I always say individual efficiency is overrated, the whole starting five being less efficient (by a fair amount) than last season is not a great thing.

It matches the eye test, the spacing has been pretty funky, on top of guys just shooting poorly.
Yeah, once everyone on your team has a middling to poor TS%, you're just a not-that-good-shooting team.

The frustrating thing in all this is that they were playing better earlier in the season.
- team 3point% wasn't amazing (36% iirc)
- but lots of attempts
- great eyetest offense, with a strong process
- functioning fine even with KP out and Jaylen injured some.
 

lexrageorge

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Looking at the past handful of NBA champions:

Nuggets had a 9-10 stretch in March/April.
Warriors went 10-16 in February/March.
Bucks went 9-7 in April, but were presumably resting players.
It's hard to analyze the 2020 season, but Lakers did lose 4 in a row in December and went 3-6 in their final 9 regular season games in the bubble.
Toronto went 8-7 in December.
Warriors went 10-10 to close out the season, but the seeding was essentially locked by that point.
The 67-15 Warriors had no real bad stretch.
Cavs were consistent, except for a meaningless 4-3 stretch in May.
And the 67-win pre-Durant Warriors were similarly consistent.

Celtics are in a 21 game stretch of mediocrity (12-9), but that's not necessarily an outlier among NBA champions. Fair to be concerned, but still something that they can play themselves out of after the All Star Break. They also have a west coast trip coming up next week, and they did go 3-1 in the last difficult road trip, and trips such as those can be a good chance to redevelop some of the missing chemistry.
 

bankshot1

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I was wondering if there was a wall that the team hit reflecting the extended championship season and then Olympics for in particular White and Holiday and that maybe some reduced minutes/maintenance might have helped. Or could going forward to prep for the real season.

But they've looked and played like a slow and tired team to these slow and tired eyes.
 

benhogan

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I'm a broken record on this, but to me the perimeter/on-ball defense has been rotten. When Jaylen Brown is not engaged, he turns into a bad defender who loses his man. Your defense is only as good as its weakest link (I don't think their bad play is due to KP).

Throw in their terrible zone defense and this team has to outshoot the other side to win. Thus any kind of shooting slump will lead to getting blown out by the worst team in the NBA.
 

Curt S Loew

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But it can also be true that the team just doesn’t have the vibes right now. FT shooting is in the tank, the Pritch missed three from the corner in the fourth, coming off back to back open corner misses from Jrue. Just no confidence, no joy, no juice.

I think it’s something they can pull out of, but I think KP should come off the bench for a while, with Al in the closing lineup.
Cross posting from Game thread. KP certainly had a lot to say after the game:

I think we played with no spirit, with no personality,” Porzingis told reporters in Toronto. “It’s just a weak performance honestly, We just play with no personality right now.

“I don’t know, honestly,” Porzingis said. “I think we just individually have to look at ourselves like where we can improve, what we need to do better, are we fit? Are we this? Are we feeling good? Are we locked in mentally and then try to fix some of the stuff that we have going on, but it’s not the end of the world like every team has ups and downs. Just that it feels like s*** right now and we played some bad basketball.”

“We just, we’re just going up and down,” Porzingis explained. “It’s weird to say like we, we have like high character people here but it’s just things are not going our way. We’re a step slow here, there, this, just no spirit, no personality.”

“Nobody’s like pointing fingers and stuff, but we know we’ll get past this,” Porzingis said. “I know it, we know it, but we have to start, we have to start playing better and we just can’t keep cruising and expect just turn it up towards the end, so it’s in our hands.”


https://www.masslive.com/celtics/2025/01/kristaps-porzingis-makes-concerning-admission-after-ugly-raptors-loss.html

I think they'll get past it as well. This is the first REAL rut we've seen them in. I certainly don't see them playing like this the rest of the season. Let's just hope they're on track when it matters.
 

Helmet Head

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I have confidence that this team will be able to turn it on against good teams / when the playoffs come and part of this lack of effort is to self preserve for the playoffs. The NBA season is long and this happens to a lot of veteran teams that have won in the past. The season doesn't start until the playoffs. The year the KG Celtics lost to the Lakers in the finals, they slept walk through most of the regular season. My one worry here is that they start to develop bad habits that will be hard to break. If they continue to play like this after the all star break, it may be time to press the panic button.
 
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lovegtm

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Looking at the past handful of NBA champions:

Nuggets had a 9-10 stretch in March/April.
Warriors went 10-16 in February/March.
Bucks went 9-7 in April, but were presumably resting players.
It's hard to analyze the 2020 season, but Lakers did lose 4 in a row in December and went 3-6 in their final 9 regular season games in the bubble.
Toronto went 8-7 in December.
Warriors went 10-10 to close out the season, but the seeding was essentially locked by that point.
The 67-15 Warriors had no real bad stretch.
Cavs were consistent, except for a meaningless 4-3 stretch in May.
And the 67-win pre-Durant Warriors were similarly consistent.

Celtics are in a 21 game stretch of mediocrity (12-9), but that's not necessarily an outlier among NBA champions. Fair to be concerned, but still something that they can play themselves out of after the All Star Break. They also have a west coast trip coming up next week, and they did go 3-1 in the last difficult road trip, and trips such as those can be a good chance to redevelop some of the missing chemistry.
Totally agree with this: lots of champions have had rough stretches, and this rough stretch DEFINITELY does not disqualify Boston as real title contenders (probably they're still Vegas favorites).

The problem is that there's a bit of selection bias here: how many other good-but-not-good-enough teams had bad stretches? Tons.

Unfortunately it's probably as simple as: if they fix this, they'll be fine. If they don't, they won't. Not very satisfying!