3 problems the Boston Celtics must fix if they wish to win an NBA title

The Boston Celtics are a team with greater aspirations than just trying to attain the top seed in the Eastern Conference standings between now and season’s end–they want to end up raising banner No. 18 into the rafters at TD Garden.

After starting off the year going 20-21 through the first half of the schedule, since the mid-way mark, the C’s have been on an absolute rampage, going 27-9 over their last 36 games and, with five contests remaining, they have a real shot of attaining homecourt advantage throughout the entirety their hopeful run to an NBA Finals berth.

However, as was previously stated, beyond just making it to the championship round Boston is truly hoping to win it all come year’s end, and have just as good of an opportunity to do so as any other team in the league.

That said, should they wish to strengthen their chances of accomplishing such an illustrious feat, they’ll likely need to go about and fix up 3 specific problems:

Boston Celtics problem No. 1) Too much emphasis on isolation scoring

As the season has rolled along, the Boston Celtics have progressively improved upon their offensive repertoire, getting closer to a more well-rounded approach to their game that sees points coming in many different ways.

That said, even with their advancements–especially during their tremendous second-half stretch–we tend to see the shamrocks settling on old habits, resorting to isolation sets when things aren’t necessarily going their way in a contest which, as proven time and time again, is not a proper method for success on this team.

Now sure, both Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum have proven to be fine contributors in this area of the floor throughout their careers, but this season, this type of playstyle has not been all that kind to them, particularly when discussing the latter talent.

On the year, the 3x All-Star and likely All-NBA selection finds himself ranked 12th in the league in isolation frequency, yet converts on a lowly 37.8 percent of his attempts.

Unfortunately, his teammates don’t tend to do much better in such a style of play, which makes their continued emphasis on getting into such sets all the more troubling.

Despite the fact that the team converts on just 40 percent of their attempts, they find themselves ranked fifth in the association when it comes to isolation frequency.

As we’ve seen numerous times throughout the season, when the ball’s moving for this club rather than seen being dominated by, say, one of the Jays, the points flow like Niagara Falls (who can forget that 27 assist performance against the scorching hot Minnesota Timberwolves where they went on to drop a whopping 134 points?!).

As we approach the playoffs, the C’s first line of business should be to cut back on their isolation play and, instead, look to swing the rock instead.