How the Celtics Are Scoring at a Historic Pace
The Celtics were a little bit of a curiosity headed into this season. Their shocking, late-summer coaching change raised questions about how the team would respond without Ime Udoka, who earned plaudits for turning Boston from a .500 team in the middle of last year to an Eastern Conference champ. There was also intrigue to see whether Boston could keep up its torrid pace from the second half of 2021–22, when the Celts essentially bulldozed a green path through the entire league.
Well, so far, Boston has quickly assuaged any concerns about taking a step back. The C’s are 11–3 entering Wednesday, good for first place in the East, and riding an NBA-best seven-game win streak before their matchup with the Hawks. And while last season’s club was lauded for its impenetrable defense, this year’s Celtics are running teams off the floor with their offense.
As it presently stands, Boston’s 118.8 offensive rating—which actually dipped after scoring 126 points against the Thunder on Monday—would be the best mark in NBA history. It’s 2.6 points per 100 possessions better than the previous season’s top mark. It’s also a breezy 1.5 points per 100 better than the 117.3 offensive rating Brooklyn posted in 2021, the current No. 1 offense of all time, which came in a strange year when most games were played in empty arenas.
The Celtics are currently operating on a different level than every other team in the league. The gap between Boston and No. 3 Denver, for example, is slightly larger than the gap between the Nuggets and the 11th-place Warriors. (The Kings, after a 153-point showing against Brooklyn, are second-best for now. Boston is still 2.3 points per 100 better than them.)
Unsurprisingly, if you’ve been watching the NBA for the last 10 years, the three-point shot has been the key to Boston’s barrage. A league-leading 46.8% of the Celtics’ shots come from deep. Boston takes the second-most threes a night and converts them at 38.2%, fourth-best in the NBA. The Celts also shoot the third-most corner threes a game, typically a tell-tale sign of a humming offense.
It’s incredibly fun to watch Boston attack. Rarely do the Celtics have more than one player standing inside the three-point line. Their offense is not predicated on spamming spread pick-and-rolls or one-on-one shotmaking. Instead, it’s a symphony of movement, cutting, passing and shooting. (And when all else fails, it doesn’t hurt to have Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown.)
To me, the beauty of the offense is how much pressure Tatum and Brown put on perimeter defenders. You need size to guard those guys, and both are worthy of commanding an opponent’s premier stopper. Brown and Tatum both fly around the wings, zipping through screens or handoffs that are often courtesy of Al Horford, sometimes even screening for each other. Both Brown and Tatum can blow by most players one on one, and that’s where the problems start for opposing defenses.
Tatum is shooting an absurd 78.2% in the restricted area, second-best of any player attempting at least five shots from that part of the floor. He’s shooting a better percentage than Giannis Antetokounmpo, Zion Williamson, Nikola Jokić and Joel Embiid, to name a few, when he gets close to the rim. It’s a testament not only to him but to Boston’s spacey attack. If Tatum blows by his defender and you cheat off the corner, Horford is camped out and ready to launch. Even Derrick White, the player opponents are seemingly most likely to sag off of, is shooting 40% from three so far this season. There’s nowhere for defenses to hide. Any slight miscommunication while Brown and Tatum are navigating screens almost always leads to points. And once a defense is caught in a rotation, the C’s will keep swinging the ball all over the floor until they find a great shot.
Meanwhile, Brown is actually having his career-worst three-point shooting season, but he’s made up for it by being an absolute killer in the midrange. Brown is connecting on 58.5% of his middies, and though the volume is not high, it’s an effective dimension of Boston’s offense. Watch him frustrate defenses by pump faking from three and pulling up into space near the elbow, or hitting contested shots over overmatched defenders.
While Brown and Tatum are often the instigators, their teammates have taken advantage. Boston shoots the most catch-and-shoot threes per game. And the supporting cast is knocking down those looks. Horford, White, Grant Williams and Sam Hauser are all shooting at least 40% from beyond the arc, while Malcolm Brogdon is shooting 36.8%. Even if the onslaught is not quite egalitarian—Tatum and Brown account for nearly 48% of the scoring themselves—it works in large part because there are no weak links.
Will the Celtics really finish the season with the best offense ever? I don’t expect Tatum, who has rounded into a one-man wrecking ball who can score from anywhere, to cool off. (He is filthy. I don’t know what the holes are in his game. His turnovers are down, too. Seriously, good luck.) You could even argue Brown’s efficiency has room to improve. It’s definitely possible the outside shooting from the supporting cast cools off, though. And while his return should absolutely help on the defensive end of the floor—where, interestingly, Boston hasn’t been very good—Robert Williams III could impact the spacing a tiny bit whenever he reenters the lineup. (Though it should be noted the Celtics didn’t exactly struggle to score with him on the floor last year.)
Ultimately, Boston may not be the exact same team we saw decimate the rest of the league for the second half of 2021–22, but the Celtics have remained every bit as scary a contender as they were before their offseason hit a snag.
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