3 weaknesses that could prevent Boston Celtics from reaching NBA Finals

Boston Celtics weakness No. 3) Jayson Tatum’s 3-point shooting woes

Jayson Tatum may have just been named to his second All-NBA team this week, but his efficiency, particularly in the scoring department, has been far from elite during this series.

Nay, throughout the majority of this year’s postseason.

Since Game 3 of the Milwaukee series, the budding superstar finds himself posting truly impressive averages of 26.7 points, 6.9 rebounds, 4.9 assists, and 1.1 blocks per game. That said, he has put up said numbers on rather underwhelming shooting splits of 44 percent shooting from the floor and 31 percent shooting from deep.

In this series alone, we’ve seen Tatum shoot over 22 percent from deep just once and, over his last two outings, has converted on a putrid 14 percent of these kinds of attempts.

Now, granted, when it comes to Game 4, he was able to make up for these inefficiencies by converting on 77 percent of his field goals taken from inside the arc, but one mustn’t expect this to happen every night, especially when considering how tough the Heat’s interior defense is with guys like Bam Adebayo and P.J. Tucker roaming about–remember what happened in Game 3?

Being that the Boston Celtics seem hell-bent on keeping their 3-point barrage going (rank second in attempts per game during this year’s postseason), Tatum, who leads his team and is ranked fifth in the league with 8.7 shots from distance, must find a way to cash in on these attempts more often than he currently is.

We’ve seen what happens when he’s off from distance during this year’s playoff run (C’s are just 2-4 when the wing shoots 30 percent or worse) and, if Boston wants to advance to the NBA Finals, he must start shooting with more consistency.