Boston Celtics Need to help Tatum at the FT line
The Boston Celtics need to follow Jayson Tatum’s lead by making up for bad shooting at the free throw line
The Boston Celtics absolutely annihilated the Philadelphia 76ers from three point range in game one, and was the biggest discrepancy between the two teams. The Celtics shot just under 50 percent, the 76ers shot just under 20 percent, and the Celtics finished with nine more attempts.
The Celtics got the shots they wanted, and they were falling for almost everyone. The 76ers on the other hand, could not get many of the open looks they need, and had a lot of uncharacteristic misses.
You have to expect the three point shooting to even out to some degree in this game, and the Celtics will have to find a way to make up that difference. The Celtics should be more confident in their defense rather than their offense, so they will have to focus on making up for some of the shooting they will probably lose.
The Celtics need to make sure they are attacking the weaknesses of the 76ers and are getting easy buckets to make up for some potential shooting regression. In game one, the one scoring area the 76ers got an edge was free throw shooting, and it really was not close.
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The 76ers finished with 35 free throw attempts, while the Celtics had just 19 attempts. To make matters worse, Tatum took 12 of those free throws. No one else attempted more than four, and a grand total of four players got to the line at any point.
Joel Embiid is one of the premier interior defenders in the NBA, so it might be hard for the Celtics to really focus on attacking on the inside. That being said, there are a lot of ways for them to find a physical matchup, and they can certainly manufacture more points by getting to the line.
Tatum had a career night scoring, but shot only 1-5 from three point range. The 76ers insisted on defending him with a mismatch, and they had no chance of stopping hm driving to the rim. The Celtics know their wings will be able to attack like that all night long, and they have versatile bigs that should be able to put in that interior work against the likes of Dario Saric and Ersan Ilyasova.
The Celtics know they cannot expect to shoot that well from three point range, but they are going to continue to look for their shots. Three point shooting is how they get to their ceiling, but if they start forcing the issue from deep, and rely on that shooting too heavily, then they could be in for a disastrous performance.
Getting to the free throw line would be the easiest way for the Celtics to make up some of these points. Tatum made it clear that he was not going to let poor shooting get in the way of a great day on offense, and everyone else needs that mentality.
Next: 3 keys to repeating game one success
If everyone continues to shoot well, then they do not have to worry about much. That being said, the Celtics need to be prepared to win if the three is not falling, and they have a lot of room to improve generating points at the free throw line.