This is less of a deeply thought out post (who does that?) and more of a note, but I found it kind of interesting.
I started watching a replay of Wednesday's game on League Pass, and a thought occurred to me:
How often do the Celts get the ball into the paint at least once in an offensive possession?
So I started over and watched the whole first quarter, tallying the possessions where the ball made it into the paint, compared to the possessions where it didn't.
My count:
26 possessions total
16 possessions where the ball never found the paint
10 possessions where it did
I didn't track this, but I also noticed that in those 10 paint possessions, maybe half of those ended in a turnover or a rushed shot that had no chance (e.g. an 8 foot flip shot from Brown or Teague, or Smart throwing up a high layup that didn't find the rim)
Now, I would do the whole game, but to be honest I don't have time. Heck, I didn't really have time to watch this one quarter.
Anyway -- what this made me notice, as well, is that although many of the possessions without a paint touch featured a lot of ball movement, and several players touched the ball, the lack of penetration meant that the opposing defense didn't have to move around very much at all. So there was a lot of offensive motion, but the defense didn't have to work very hard.
I'll have to come back and do this again when Tatum is back. I'm hoping that with Tatum on the floor, the Celts pressure the opposing defense a bit more. But Tatum's proclivity for step-back threes may cut against that.