The Boston Celtics and the Trouble with Offensive Rebounds
By Greg Cassoli
The primary weakness of the Celtics turned out to be the primary reason they dropped game 1 in Boston.
The Celtics dropped game one of their first round series to the Bulls on Sunday night. Isaiah Thomas’ game notwithstanding, it was an uninspiring performance, marked by sloppy play, and above all else, terrible rebounding. Boston surrendered twenty offensive boards, giving up an astonishing 45.5% of available rebounds on the defensive end. That’s more than twice as many offensive rebounds allowed as the team averaged throughout the year, and not far off from twice as bad on a percentage basis (Celtics’ opponents grabbed 24.6% of available offensive rebounds on the year).
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Chicago’s success on the glass was devastating. It was the primary reason the Bulls won the game despite performing similarly from the field and at the line, shooting a significantly worse percentage from three, and committing more turnovers. The Celtics consistently played great defense on initial possessions, only to see their efforts undermined by second and third chance scores.
The Bulls rebounding translated to 23 total points, a mark that represents more than a fifth of their total offense for the game. If you take that rate and extrapolate it out across 100 possessions, it totals 115 points, roughly equivalent to the Golden State Warriors’ league-best offense and more than seven points better than Chicago’s average for the year.
That shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Offensive rebounds typically turn into shots at the rim or wide open kick outs, which are great ways to spur offensive production. The Celtics might actually be lucky those twenty extra possession didn’t turn into more points.
Boston’s ability to solve its offensive rebounding problem will be a major determinant of their ultimate success in the series. They aren’t built to be great on the glass, but there aren’t a lot of excuses to be made for just how bad they were in game one. What to expect based on that performance is a matter of perspective.
The pessimist will suggest that the Bulls dominance on the glass was the result of an unsolvable disparity in personnel. Chicago is, thus, destined to continue to push around Boston’s bigs, own the paint, and win the series.
The optimist (if that exists in Boston) will posit that things couldn’t possibly go much worse. The Celtics will value the ball a bit more moving forward, put a body on Robin Lopez, crash the glass more effectively as a team, and let their superior play everywhere else on the court do the rest.
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The reality of things probably lives somewhere in between those two poles. The Celtics aren’t going to be able to keep Chicago off the glass entirely, no matter how hard they try. They just aren’t constructed to do so. They are capable of better than what they’ve demonstrated thus far though. Time will tell if they show it. We won’t have to wait long. Game two is rapidly approaching.