Through seven games played during these early stages of the 2021-22 season, it’s not hard to see just how disappointing the Boston Celtics have been.
Dropping five of their outings, three of which were OT defeats, and having a plethora of their players underperform, for the average Cs fan the start to their supposed bounce-back campaign after enduring such an underwhelming 2020-21 run has been truly abysmal.
However, this is not to say that all hope is lost on the year. Despite their lowly start, there’s still plenty of time for the shamrocks to figure things out and, in turn, thrust themselves up the Eastern Conference standings.
Of course, this shift in production will have to be a result of quite a number of internal tweaks and shakeups.
Should the Celtics actually wish to turn their season around and recapture their old winning ways, we here at HH believe there are 4 glaring weaknesses that they must fix:
Weakness Boston Celtics need to fix No. 1) Defensive switching
When it comes to the term insanity, a popular example people like to use is the famous quote stating that the definition is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
If this were to be the actual delineation of the term, then by all means this coaching staff is clinically insane with their constant calls for the C’s defense to switch everything.
Through seven games, not only can we confidently say this is not a good scheme to run for the team but, frankly, it’s just flat out not working.
By going with this method, we are constantly seeing Boston optionally pushing themselves into mismatch scenarios, ones where we see guys like Robert Williams III out on the perimeter covering a Fred VanVleet or Dennis Schroder being backed down in the paint by a Montrezl Harrell.
Both of these scenarios actually happened, and are just a few examples of this switching method negatively impacting the shamrocks.
This form of defense is incredibly exhausting, both for fans to watch and, more importantly, the players to run, leading to significant levels of fatigue which, in turn, is likely a major factor in their tired legs early on in games as well as their current standing as the league’s most foul-happy squad (22.3 personal fouls called per game).
With this in mind, if Udoka relented on his desire to switch everything, perhaps his players will have the energy necessary to stay consistent from start to finish on both ends of the ball.
Weakness Boston Celtics need to fix No. 2) Offensive production off the pine
Over the past several years, one of the most consistent weaknesses found within the rotation for the Boston Celtics has been in their bench unit, specifically when it has come to their offensive production.
Since 2019-20 the C’s bench has ranked 29th and 28th, respectively, in points per game while also finishing off with the 20th and 23rd ranked offensive rating during this time span as well.
While we at HH were rather optimistic about the unit’s chances of becoming a much-improved rotation coming into the year, as they seemingly made quite a number of necessary moves where they finally looked to have a solid grouping of individuals to have coming off the pine, through this first slate of action it appears as though Boston is still rolling out a pedestrian second-team offense.
So far this season the Celtics bench finds itself ranked 26th in points per game, 22nd in field goal percentage (40.2 percent), and dead last in offensive rating.
Having a more efficient and productive bench scoring unit would allow some of the offensive pressures to come off the shoulders of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown and would obviously make the opposing defense’s task much more difficult.
Be it by throwing guys like Payton Pritchard and/ or Aaron Nesmith (seven minutes per game is simply not enough to get him going) more minutes or acquiring someone to help shore up this lackluster aspect of the team’s game (Terrence Ross has always been a favorite trade target of ours) the Boston Celtics must try and find a way they can improve upon their secondary scoring.
Weakness Boston Celtics need to fix No. 3) Starting strong, finishing strong
The Boston Celtics are a team that has suffered from something that we like to call the tale of two halves syndrome. Essentially, what this means is that the team cannot seem to have the same amount of success in one half as they have managed to have in another.
Be it a strong first two quarters that are followed up with a late-game collapse (take Monday’s game against Chicago, for example) or an abysmal start that needs to be countered with strong play throughout the third and fourth quarters (October 25th’s matchup against the Hornets), for some reason it seems as though the Celtics just can’t seem to put forth the same level of production through all periods of a contest.
A strong start and a strong finish have yet to be seen together, which has proven to be a major reason why they find themselves boasting a lowly 2-5 record to start the year.
Finding consistency in their play throughout a game will be a major key in getting their season going on the right track, and it will take a collective effort from top to bottom for Boston to accomplish this, for their stars certainly have not proven to be the most steady of contributors thus far.
Weakness Boston Celtics need to fix No. 4) Second-chance points/ rebounding
Despite the fact that the Boston Celtics seem to be dead set on running the double bigs lineup, they find themselves struggling when it comes to second-chance possessions, both in regard to scoring as well as letting up scores by these means.
Thus far on the year, the shamrocks find themselves ranking 20th in the association in second-chance points and 21st in opponents second-chance points.
Though perhaps a prototypical “easier said than done” situation, it’s quite obvious that the Cs need to address this area of their game, and a way to do this is likely by putting more of an emphasis on attacking the boards, as they’ve been out-rebounded in four of their seven contests, each one ended in a defeat.
If they can manage to improve their status in the league as being just the 13th best rebounding team as well as the second-worst team in regard to letting up boards, this problem could actually be resolved rather quickly.
Again, easier said than done but, with the double-big lineup, they should already be doing a better job in this department than they currently are.