Why the Boston Celtics Will Be the NBA's Best Rebounding Team This Season

The Boston Celtics have a chance to be one of the best rebounding teams in the league. The addition of Mitchell Robinson, along with the growth of Neemias Queta, the development of wings like Baylor Scheierman and Hugo Gonzalez, and most importantly, the return of leading rebounder Jayson Tatum, all add up to potentially great rebounding numbers on both ends.

Rebounding is a huge part of defense, because all the work players put in on that end means nothing if the team can’t clear the board after a miss. It’s also a big part of the Celtics offense, and an emphasis of Joe Mazzulla’s over the years, because the Celtics rely on a lot of jump shots. Consider crashing the offensive glass as a sort of workaround for getting to the rim.

Last season, the Celtics finished the year with the fifth-best offensive (33.6%) and defensive (71%) rebounding percentage, and the third-best overall rebounding percentage (52.5%). They led the league with 46.9 rebounds per game.

How much better can they get? Personally, I think they can be the best in the league.

I think the Celtics of three seasons ago might be the best guide for figuring this out. That team had the league’s second-best defensive rating, holding teams to the second-lowest field goal percentage in the NBA. The Celtics were next-to-last in forcing turnovers, mostly because they didn’t gamble on steals. They instead challenged shots, finishing third in overall contested shots, and rebounded the misses.

That's the most likely path for these Celtics because they have a ton of size and great rebounding, and contesting without fouling prevents teams from piling up free points at the line. The Celtics allowed the fewest free throw attempts in that 2024 season, and I think that will be their goal again this year.

So with all that in mind, let’s crunch some numbers to see where the Celtics could land rebounding-wise.

The Celtics allowed 86.8 field goal attempts last season, the sixth-fewest in the league. The Brooklyn Nets allowed 84.7, which was the fewest. I think the Celtics will land in a similar space this season because they aren’t going to be a fast-paced team.

I’m going to round up to 87 shots per game. Last season, the Celtics allowed opponents to shoot 44.2% from the field, second-best in the league. They have historically been a top-five, mostly top-two, team in this category under Joe Mazzulla, so there's no reason to think that will change.

Allowing 44% shooting on 87 shots means 49 of them will miss. Last season, the Celtics rebounded 71% of those misses, but they might be able to get that number up a little, simply by virtue of adding Tatum and Robinson. Tatum grabbed nearly 17% of the defensive rebounds in his return last season, but has hovered just below 13% prior to that. Robinson grabbed 26% last season, but is usually closer to 21%.

They’d be replacing Jaylen Brown’s 11.1% and Luka Garza’s 12% (at least part of the time), so factoring in an increase makes sense. What we don’t know is how much they’ll negate each other (and Neemias Queta) because only one of them can actually get to the rebound.

The Spurs led the NBA by grabbing 72.4% of defensive rebounds, so the Celtics aren’t that far from the top of the league. The Celtics averaged 34 defensive rebounds per game last season, and they can add one more if they get up to 72%, and get to 35.5 if they can match the Spurs number.

The offensive rebounding is a more interesting scenario because the Celtics 46.7% shooting was 16th in the NBA. Their heavy three-point shooting volume will always drag their overall shooting percentage down, but they can shoot better than this. If they do, the overall number of offensive rebounding chances will drop.

Adding Robinson certainly brings an elite offensive rebounder into the mix. As good as Luka Garza was last season, he grabbed 15.7% of the available offensive rebounds, averaging 2.3 per game. Robinson’s OReb percentage was 23.9% last year, and he averaged 4.2 per game.

Tatum is not an offensive rebounder at all. His career OReb percentage is 2.8%. Robinson grabbed 252 offensive rebounds last season, more than Tatum has combined since the 2022-23 season. Jaylen Brown wasn’t tearing up the offensive glass, but he was good for one more than Tatum per game, so that negates a little bit of Robinson’s impact.

We can probably expect a slight increase from last season’s 33.6%. Even if we push it to 35% and put them on par with the Detroit Pistons, maybe we can expect Boston to end up averaging 13.5 offensive rebounds per game, which would bring them from seven in per-game average up to about third using last season's numbers.

Adding the two numbers, the Celtics could average about 49 total rebounds per game next season, which would have led the league in every season since the 2021-22 Memphis Grizzlies, which averaged 49.2.

So there's your answer to whether the Celtics can become the best rebounding team in the league. The answer is a resounding yes, and that barely takes into consideration other internal improvements from Queta and some of the younger wings. There are only so many rebounds to be had, but there's a really good chance that the Celtics will get their hands on most of them this season.

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