Boston Celtics Need to Make Things Easier On Themselves

The Boston Celtics are making things far too difficult on themselves during this recent stretch

The Boston Celtics are going through their worst stretch of the season. They have lost four straight games to mediocre to bad teams, and have been playing their worst basketball of the season. There are getting absolutely nothing going on offense, and know there needs to be major changes if they want to get back to playing at a contending level.

One thing that has followed the Celtics around for all their loses this season has been how difficult they make it on themselves. They are always inconsistent and unbalanced, failing to put together complete games on either end when they lose.

The Celtics constantly put themselves in the difficult position of having to come back and close out in the clutch, and now they are playing offense in a way that makes it even more difficult. The Celtics are heavily invested in three point shooting, and it will always be a major part of their offense.

That being said, they need to figure out how ways to manufacture points that are not dependant on their unreliable shooters hitting their shots at a consistent rate. To be the best in the league, the Celtics are going to need stellar three point shooting. Right now they have a lot of steps before getting close to the best in the league, and that means making things easier on themselves, even if it hurts their ceiling for the time being.

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The Celtics want their three point shooting to be an edge that allows them to score with anyone in the league, and the long term potential is there. Right now, however, all the three point shooting is doing is letting some of the worst teams in the league hang around and mount major comebacks.

The Celtics are already near the league lead with their 31.6 three point attempts per game, while being outside the top 10 in three point percentage. The Celtics have lacked a balance of volume and efficiency from beyond the arc all season long, and it has been utterly miserable during this stretch.

In these last four loses, the Celtics have taken 50, 29, 27 and 44 attempts. The Celtics failed to hit 40 percent from beyond the arc in any of those games and were under 30 percent in two of them, and they cannot sustain a legitimate offense while missing so many three pointers. The Celtics need to focus on doing more things to get the easy buckets, and stop getting killed in the paint so often.

One advantage the Celtics also have is defenses have to put all their energy into stopping the three pointers. The Celtics always have players that spread the floor on the court, and defenders have to focus most of their energy on defending that three point line.

The Celtics need to take advantage of that space, and use Al Horford‘s ability to pass out of the post more often to get more players at the rim for easy looks. The Celtics have a lot of shooters on the court, but too many of them are inconsistent shooters. The Celtics will always want these guys taking the open looks, but all the focus cannot be about getting more looks from three point range.

The Celtics also have a lot of athletic finishers, that can generate more reliable offense on the inside. Smart has incredible strength, and it is usually hard to trust him with even the most wide open threes. If Jaylen Brown could figure out how to hit some free throws, he could do his best damage finishing through contact in the paint. In fact, everyone on this team could benefit from getting to the line more often, finding the extra points anywhere they can get them.

Jayson Tatum and Kyrie Irving are some of the most reliable three point shooters in the league, and we certainly do not want to be limiting them in any way. That being said, Irving is the best finisher at the rim in the entire league, and expanding that part of his game is a much easier way for Tatum to break out of this mini slump. If the Celtics want to integrate more driving to the rim in their offense, some of it will have to come from the two of them.

They have versatile bigs who can shoot, but shooting is not the only thing they will do. Daniel Theis and Aron Baynes will not create their own offense, but they can be trusted both at the rim and in the mid range game.

Remember all those cuts that Avery Bradley used to kill teams with, the Celtics need to find someone that can run that same kind of game with Horford. Right now, it does not feel like anyone else even trying to have that impact, and you will not find a better big to do it with than Horford.

The highest potential of this Celtics offense is in the three point shooting. A lot of what they have done to build this roster is about getting shooters at every position, because you simply cannot keep up with a team that has that much shooting.

Right now, the Celtics are not close enough to the end of their process of building to have three point shooting be this prominent. They need to work on making things as easy as possible so they can find the kind of rhythm that made them successful early on.

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Once the Celtics get past this point where it feels like no team is bad enough to not be a threat to the Celtics, then they can start thinking about what needs to be done to reach their potential as a three point shooting team.