The thing that drives me nuts about this team is everything seems like an outside shot. They rarely seem to go to the paint. I’ll give it to Kyrie, he does attack the rim. But for some unexplainable reason, the referees rarely seem to call falls in Kyrie’s favor. Does he need to flop to get a call?
Do the refs have something against Tatum? It seems like every time he misses a shot (since he’s been in the league), he’s always making a gesture at the referees saying that he was fouled. Are the refs tired of his act and taking it out on the rest of the team?
This isn't really about the refs. Yes, SOME refs are bizarrely inconsistent with other refs. But overall, the Celtics don't get calls regardless of the refs.
The problem is twofold.
a) We don't really drive all that much. We are ranked 24th in the NBA in drives per game.
b) Even when we drive, we don't try to create contact. In particular, Kyrie (responsible for the most of our drives) tries to avoid contact with the way he drives and shoots.
Try to dig up some highlights of the way Isaiah Thomas would attack on a drive and compare them to highlights of Kyrie. Thomas would purposely time the defender's body motion, anticipating the bump and then purposely play off the contact. He'd use his off hand to get the shot off anyway if necessary and if he missed he'd go sink a couple of free throws. Then net result was a season of historic scoring efficiency.
Kyrie, on his drives will use pull ups and dribble action to create space to try to get a clear shot off. He actually ends up shooting these at excellent efficiency (because he isn't being jarred by bumps). But he gets very little contact and far fewer trips to the FT line. The net result is still elite scoring efficiency, but not quite up there with what Thomas was posting.
Now, Thomas' last season with us was a truly historic offensive showing and shouldn't be the benchmark for what is expected of Irving. Irving's scoring efficiency this year overall has been fantastic.
BUT ... the lack of free throws is a problem. It's the loss of an important side effect that really helps your team: Foul pressure.
Drawing fouls on the other team is a huge weapon in of itself because it can put their players on the bench, messing up the other coach's rotations and helping you on both offense and defense.
One could argue Isaiah's bully-ball driving and absorbing contact in mid air led to his downfall and demise of his body. I believe while Isaiah put up historical numbers, Irving's efficiency is still pretty top notch. I believe since Irving is a finesse player, he carves defenses, but tries to avoid lingering contact even when hit.
Well, Isaiah was used as an example because he is a similar small, quick guard who played in pretty much the exact same offensive system. So he's easy to show the difference in why one gets to the line while the other doesn't.
But the techniques used by Isaiah aren't unique to him. Guys from Paul Pierce to Cedric Maxwell to Michael Jordan to Lebron James to Kevin Durant all knew how to use contact to get to the line. It's a skill.
And let's be clear, Isaiah had a rather unusual injury that surfaced due to a chronic issue (femoral socket impingement). That took an extreme incident to become an issue. Prior to that, Thomas had been a remarkably durable player. He had missed very few games due to injury in his career before he finally had to give in during that Cavs ECF series. And Kyrie Irving hasn't exactly been all that great at avoiding injury.
Both players came into the league on opposite ends of the 2011 draft. Since then, despite missing pretty much all of last year and most of this year until a couple weeks ago, Isaiah has actually played in 477 games ... just slightly less than the 492 games that Kyrie has played in. Prior to his hip injury, Thomas had missed far fewer games than Kyrie had.
Hmm... just looking at bb-ref ... wow. It's only been 4 measly games, but Isaiah's numbers look pretty good for a guy who has missed that much time. 8 of 20 on threes, 14 trips to the FT line in just 68 minutes of play (thats 7.4 FTA/36). Looks like he's picking right back up where he left off, though his per-game minutes are still modest.