Boston Celtics: 3 takeaways from crushing loss to Mavs

Boston Celtics takeaway No. 2) Lack of reliable 3-point shooting

As mentioned before, practically no Boston Celtics player could hit from the outside apart from Jayson Tatum. In the fourth quarter, both Richardson and Marcus Smart hit timely triples but didn’t sustain that shooting throughout the rest of the game.

Without Jaylen Brown, Boston elected to place Dennis Schroder into the starting lineup, alongside Smart, Tatum, Al Horford, and Williams. With this shooting-starved lineup, the Mavs are allowed to force the ball out of Tatum’s hands, daring others to shoot themselves into a win.

That obviously didn’t work, with the starters besides Jayson shooting a combined 2-of-13 from distance.

Due to this, Aaron Nesmith was the first player off the bench, hoping to provide some energy and floor spacing for this Celtics offense. He certainly brought the energy, but couldn’t get his shot to fall at all, missing all four of his attempts from deep.

Boston has had their fair share of struggles this year creating perimeter offense with the backcourt of Smart and Schroder, and they continued Saturday. The C’s generated quality looks throughout the night, but simply don’t have the quality shooters in this current rotation to knock them down on a consistent basis.

The Boston Celtics entered the night 21st in 3-point percentage at just under 34 percent, and that will only drop after this loss, finishing 9-of-31 (29%) from long range.