Twenty Games In: The Numbers

[ozgod]

I still haven't seen anyone in the East that has more talent than Boston. Toronto are a good but not great team. Milwaukee are awkward to play against. Philly have top level talent but questionable depth. Boston has the most balanced and most talented roster in the East.

I care about talent a heck of a lot more than a W-L record (especially over only 20 games).

Boston is the best team in the East.

There's talent and then there's how you play.

Where do you think the Celts will improve as the season goes on, and how?

I don't think it's as simple as saying "they're too talented not to figure it out."  Even factoring in Hayward's struggles returning from injury, it doesn't really make sense to me that they are this bad at generating efficient offense.

Great opening post. Paraphrasing what Thomas Edison said, success is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. This team has plenty of inspiration going for them, they have talent across the roster, but talent without effort and application doesn't do anything. I've come to the conclusion that the issues this team is having is 100% mental. If you look at the stats from last season's playoffs vs this season to date a number of our metrics are actually up:

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TEAM GP W L WIN% MIN PTS FGM FGA FG% 3PM 3PA 3P% FTM FTA FT% OREB DREB REB AST TOV STL BLK BLKA PF PFD +/-
'17-18 Season 82 55 27 .671 48.3 104.0 38.3 85.1 45.0 11.5 30.4 37.7 16.0 20.7 77.1 9.4 35.1 44.5 22.5 14.0 7.4 4.5 4.4 19.7 19.2 3.6
'17-18 Playoffs 19 11 8 .579 48.5 101.4 36.4 83.3 43.7 10.5 30.6 34.3 18.1 23.5 76.7 8.8 32.8 41.7 21.2 11.6 6.8 4.1 5.6 20.4 21.4 0.7
2018-19 Season 20 10 10 .500 48.5 106.3 39.4 90.2 43.7 12.3 35.8 34.3 15.3 19.8 77.2 10.3 36.0 46.2 24.3 13.7 8.1 5.4 4.0 21.2 20.5 2.1

PPG is up, rebounds are up, assists are up, both from last year and last year's playoffs.

Here's the defensive comparison:

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TEAM GP W L MIN DEF RTG DREB DREB% STL BLK OPP PTS OFF TOV OPP PTS 2ND CHANCE OPP PTS FB OPP PTS PAINT
'17-18 Season 82 55 27 48.3 103.1 35.1 73.9 7.4 4.5 15.6 11.2 10.4 43.8
'17-18 Playoffs 19 11 8 48.5 106.0 32.8 74.7 6.8 4.1 12.5 10.7 11.1 44.7
'18-19 Season 20 10 10 48.5 102.8 36.0 74.6 8.1 5.4 13.8 12.2 11.6 45.1

Not much difference again, right? The stats would suggest that our defense is actually better overall than last year.

Let's look at advanced stats:

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TEAM GP W L MIN OFFRTG DEFRTG NETRTG AST% AST/TO AST RATIO OREB% DREB% REB% TOV% EFG% TS% PACE PIE
'17-18 Season 82 55 27 3961.0 106.7 103.1 3.6 58.6 1.60 17.0 26.3 73.9 50.4 14.4 51.8 55.2 96.82 51.9
'17-18 Playoffs 19 11 8 922.0 107.0 106.0 1.0 58.2 1.82 16.5 25.6 74.7 49.4 12.3 50.0 54.1 93.81 49.9
'18-19 Season 20 10 10 970.0 104.6 102.8 1.8 61.7 1.78 17.5 25.4 74.6 49.9 13.4 50.5 53.8 100.48 51.7


Our net rating has dropped, our assist ratio has gone up, our EFG% (as mentioned in the OP) and TS% has dropped slightly but not materially in my opinion.

Finally here's the scoring comparison:

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TEAM GP W L MIN %FGA2PT %FGA3PT %PTS2PT %PTS2PT-MR %PTS3PT %PTSFBPS %PTSFT %PTSOFFTO %PTSPITP 2FGM%AST 2FGM%UAST 3FGM%AST 3FGM%UAST FGM%AST FGM%UAST
'17-18 Season 82 55 27 48.3 64.3 35.7 51.6 13.4 33.0 9.1 15.3 14.8 38.3 49.0 51.0 81.3 18.7 58.6 41.4
'17-18 Playoffs 19 11 8 48.5 63.3 36.7 51.2 10.2 31.0 9.8 17.8 14.8 41.0 48.1 51.9 83.4 16.6 58.2 41.8
'18-19 Season 20 10 10 48.5 60.3 39.7 51.1 13.5 34.6 14.3 14.3 16.2 37.6 51.0 49.0 85.3 14.7 61.7 38.3
Our % of FG from 2pt range has dropped, our % of FG from 3 has gone up, our % of FT has dropped, probably because our pts in the paint (PITP) has dropped, but our % of FG assisted vs unassisted has gone up, both from 2 and 3.

So what does all this tell us? It tells us that if you look at them statistically there's really not that huge a difference from last year. They were a poor offensive team last year and they still are this year. This year it looks worse because we're taking and missing more 3. Defensively it's a wash from last year from an overall perspective.

So why are we 10-10 this year? Most telling stat to me: of our 10 wins, 6 have come from likely playoff bound teams like Philly, Toronto, Detroit (twice), OKC and Milwaukee. We also had a 1pt loss to Indiana and only lost our first matchup with Toronto in the last 2 mins. Against (perceived) lesser competition we've given up losses to NY (and our 1st game against them we only won by 2), Orlando, Denver, Charlotte and Dallas.

This tells me that they can get themselves up for the good teams, they put the effort in from the opening tipoff and at their best they can beat anyone. We've all seen that in flashes. But when you match them up with run of the mill teams I think they struggle to get motivated, they get lazy, take lazy shots, don't make the effort to get to the rim, don't switch quickly enough and don't communicate when they do so they get burned trying to close out the open shooter. Then they fall behind and expend huge amounts of energy to try and catch up.

Certainly there's technical and tactical issues to sort out, they need to attack the paint more, communicate better on D, make more of an effort to identify hot hands on the other team and get the ball out of their hands more, but a big part of this team's problem is between the ears and inside their chest. Talent without effort and application doesn't get you very far in the NBA.

Just my 2c.

[keevsnick]

I still haven't seen anyone in the East that has more talent than Boston. Toronto are a good but not great team. Milwaukee are awkward to play against. Philly have top level talent but questionable depth. Boston has the most balanced and most talented roster in the East.

I care about talent a heck of a lot more than a W-L record (especially over only 20 games).

Boston is the best team in the East.

I really think Brown needs to go to the bench.  He has been awful.  It is time to put him in the spot where he can be most useful.  Irving, Smart, Hayward, Tatum, and Horford should start.  Against the teams with a lot of size, then swap in Baynes for Smart or Hayward (depending on the wings).  Brown can lead the second unit where he can have the ball in his hand a lot, which is when he is most effective (he is also better at SF than at SG).

I'm as big a Brown supporter as there is, still think he's gonna be a great player. But I agree with this take. Right no the celtics are asking Jaylen to be an off ball guy. They wnat him to shoot threes, but he's cold and missing them alot. They wnat him to cut, but so many of his teammates celticds are bad or inadequate passers. They ask him to stand in the corner for latge epriods of time never even tuching the ball, which I think makes it hard for him to get any rythm. I think it may simply be better to let him touch the ball and attcak more, maybe even get some pick and roll oppurtunities, on the secnd unit. Of course the problem right now is that Hayward has been largley bad so not really sure what the starting lineup should be.

[jpotter33]

TP Pho for such an extensive breakdown. While I agree with several of the other posts about Brown being played in an unfamiliar role and our offensive philosophy being a little mismatched to our talent, I’m with Oz that this still primarily a mental issue stemming from issues with chemistry and lack of role clarification, which is leading to inconsistent effort and players not playing loose and free. I think Who is right that talent eventually wins out, but that has to come with addressing the team’s issues with chemistry and role clarification for them to actually start playing up to their talent level.

[SHAQATTACK]

Another 20 of the same terrible games and its

Crank the Tank time

[KGBirdBias]

Excellent breakdown from original poster.

The main thing I took from this is when he said....we have a bunch of mediocre shooters, shooting 3s. This is what I was trying to say in another post but this post explains it much much better.

When is Stevens going to fix this?

[mctyson]

I still haven't seen anyone in the East that has more talent than Boston. Toronto are a good but not great team. Milwaukee are awkward to play against. Philly have top level talent but questionable depth. Boston has the most balanced and most talented roster in the East.

I care about talent a heck of a lot more than a W-L record (especially over only 20 games).

Boston is the best team in the East.

While I generally agree that the talent aspect is most important, you are willfully denying the importance of home-court advantage in the playoffs.  The Celtics lethargic start to the season has effectively abdicated that to Toronto at this point.

Maybe they can win playoff games on the road in May but they cannot win games on the road right now.

And I also may be wrong here but the play thus far indicates that the talent on this team may be overrated.

[GreenWarrior]

Why can't the Celtics generate free throws?


Of the top 5 Celtics in field goals attempted, none attempts more than 3.6 free throws a game (Tatum).  Tatum's free throws are slightly up from last year.  Kyrie Irving has never been a big free throw guy, but he's attempting 3.1 a game this year after attempting 4.4 last year and 4.6 the year prior.  Jaylen Brown's minutes are down slightly from last year, but his free throw attempts per 36 are down from 3.9 to 3.1 even though his field goal attempts per minute are about the same.  Al Horford, as usual, attempts very few free throws, though his attempts are slightly down from last year as well.  Morris, likewise, generates very few three throws for such a high usage player.

Speaking generally, the Celts are lacking a player who can generate a good number of free throws.  Gordon Hayward, in his last healthy season, attempted almost 6 per game.  Hayward, unfortunately, is currently nowhere close to the player he was back then.

The Celts probably don't have any answer on their roster for this problem, but even so, they can't afford to have so many of their top guys generating even fewer free throws than before.


Why are the Celtics such a poor shooting team?

Among the top 5 players on the Celtics in three pointers attempted, Kyrie is shooting about the same as in previous years (38.5%).  Morris, a career 36% shooter from deep, is shooting a likely unsustainable 43.5%.  Tatum's 39.5% is less than last season's 43.4% from deep, but he is attempting more threes this year, so he's shooting about as you would expect. 

The main culprits are Jaylen Brown, shooting about 25% on 4.2 attempts per game, and Gordon Hayward, shooting 28.6% on 3.9 attempts per game.  Gordon's poor shooting is easy to explain, though he probably ought to take fewer shots (and play fewer minutes) in general.  Jaylen's shooting is way down from last season's 39.5%, though that was probably a bit of a fluke considering as a rookie he was a 34.5% outside shooter on few attempts. 

Al Horford, 6th on the team in three pointers attempted per game, is also struggling at 31.9% on 3.8 attempts.  That number should go up, though likely not that much given that prior to last year's 42.9%, Al had shot about 35% on threes in the two prior seasons that he attempted a significant number of outside shots per game.


Overall, the answer here seems to be that the Celts have too many mediocre shooters attempting a large number of threes.  It doesn't help matters that among the top 7 players on the team in two point field goals attempted, none shoots better than 58% (Horford).


Bottom line, the Celts really need to figure out how to generate more easy buckets.  Shooting more threes, or hitting a higher percentage of their threes, is probably not the answer to fix this offense.

Fact - the Celtics have increased their wins every year under brad stevens.
Fact - the Celtics have acquired more talent each year under brad stevens.
Fact - we've never been an attack the basket team, we've always been a perimeter team under brad stevens.
Fact - each year we've made the playoffs we've been eliminated the same way - opposing team goes on a run and by default we take poor contested jump shots... some early in the shot clock. this is no different than how we normally run our offense, it's just more noticeable when you're about to be eliminated .

so the answer to your question is our bad offensive philosophy and our encouragement for everyone to have the green light to shoot whenever.

shots aren't falling because these same shots we've been taking were bad shots to begin with. eventually that catches up to you(look at every one of our playoff runs) and now that bad offensive philosophy has run it's course - it's not the players, it's what & how they're being told to play.   

[DefenseWinsChamps]

Interesting stats. One thing I've noticed is the lack of free throws, but then I remembered that it seemed like that was the case at the beginning of every season under CBS.

2015-16 through 20 games was 22fta per game, but by the end of the season was 23.5 fta per game. They started on pace for 23rd in the NBA and finished 12th.
2016-17 through 20 games was 21 fta per game, but by the end of the season were 23 fta per game. They started on pace for 29th in the NBA and finished 15th.
2017-2018 was an anomaly in this. We were on fire to begin this season after the Hayward injury.
2018-19 through 20 games was 20 fta per game, but I'd guess we will end the season around 23. We started on pace for 29th in the NBA, but we probably will finish in the mid teens.

I think this has something to do with the way CBS develops his offense throughout the year. He teaches them not to force the issue, but to read and react. So far, that has led to indecision and turnovers, but long-term, I think the offense will be pretty good.

This is especially the case with young players that need to establish a niche in the NBA. I'm guessing that as the team's core gets established, these early season woes will vanish.

[ozgod]

TP Pho for such an extensive breakdown. While I agree with several of the other posts about Brown being played in an unfamiliar role and our offensive philosophy being a little mismatched to our talent, I’m with Oz that this still primarily a mental issue stemming from issues with chemistry and lack of role clarification, which is leading to inconsistent effort and players not playing loose and free. I think Who is right that talent eventually wins out, but that has to come with addressing the team’s issues with chemistry and role clarification for them to actually start playing up to their talent level.

And the person who is in a better position to address those mental issues is Brad Stevens. Brad has shown that he has technical acumen, he draws up great ATO plays, he's created a system that emphasizes the strengths of the players he has. Now he has to show that he can manage the personalities, build morale, make sure everyone is on the same page with what the team overall is trying to achieve and how, and get this team of (wannabe) champions playing like a champion team, particularly with the rumors of disharmony and the (obvious) low spirits. It's a bigger challenge than Brad has faced in his career to date and we'll see if he's up to it or not.