Mid-Season Review: How the Boston Celtics have fared in their first half
How have the Boston Celtics struggled so far?
Shot selection:
A strange malady has afflicted the C’s this season; they seem to be cripplingly allergic to generating efficient shots. The Boston Celtics were designed by Brad Stevens and Danny Ainge to be versatile and dangerous at every position, with multiple playmakers, shooters, cutters, screeners and slashers on the floor at all times.
Theoretically, these line-ups allow everyone to get very easy looks at the basket, because the opponent has to worry about all five players on the floor who are adept at all the above skills. The results did not turn out as planned for the Celtics, as the lack of defined roles has led many players to revert to bad habits on the offensive end, overpass, or overthink.
The Celtics are shooting the 8th most mid-range shots in the NBA and are making those shots at a 41% clip. The mid-range shot has been maligned throughout the league in the last few years because of its inefficiency, and the Celtics are rightly viewed as the example of what not to do if you want to generate efficient offense at an NBA level.
Even more egregious than the C’s torrid love affair with the mid-range jumper is their complete and utter inability to score in the paint. The Celts seem completely terrified of taking the ball inside yet possess world class athletes on the wing and the perimeter with highlight packages on YouTube dedicated to them dunking on people or slithering past them for layups.
The Celts are currently 26th in the league in field goals attempted in the restricted area – this is the easiest shot in basketball and is rightly emphasised by the league’s brightest minds. Additionally, taking more shots at the rim would serve to improve the Celtics’ mediocre field goal percentage which is presently 16th in the NBA at .458. These stats must improve if the league is going to take them seriously as contenders. The lack of offense generated by attacking the paint has also detrimentally affected their free throw rate as well.
Gang Green is currently the second worst team in the entire league when it comes to attempting free throws; try as the Celtics might to blame that on the referees for not giving them the calls, you have to earn those calls by attacking the paint with conviction, an adjective that has been sorely lacking from Celtics games this season.
Rebounding:
Aron Baynes has been nothing short of a revelation for the C’s in his tenure in Boston, he is the first true enforcer the Celts have had since Kendrick Perkins, and Celts fans the world over remember Perk so fondly because of the weapons he gave that vaunted Celtics’ defense. Aron Baynes is cut from the same cloth, he sets cinderblock screens, boxes out effectively and defends effectively without fouling.
He is the perfect complement to an evolving Al Horford, who sees most of his time in the high post, and on the 3-point line as a prototype 5-man. With nagging injuries to both bigs, the Celtics’ rebounding has taken a serious hit over the last 20 games, dropping to 19th in the league.
Schedule:
The Celtics are currently 25-17, 5th place in the East and 3rd in the Atlantic Division. Despite playing a majority of their games against subpar Eastern Conference opponents, the Celtics have lost many winnable games and have had to eke out games pundits predicted they would breeze through. The Celtics have had the 5th easiest schedule in the league to this point, and even though they maintain playoff position, they have utterly failed to capitalise on this early advantage.
Nine of the Celtics’ next 15 games are against playoff opponents, with one back-to-back, thankfully only five of those games are on the road.