MEMPHIS — Threes have been a way of life for the Boston Celtics. Joe Mazzulla has repeatedly emphasized that threes aren’t the goal, but merely the product of Boston hunting the best shot on offense. Jayson Tatum, Derrick White, and Payton Pritchard all topped the franchise record for threes made in a season last year.
In total, eight Celtics attempted at least four threes per game in the 2024-25 season. Now, three of them—Al Horford, Jrue Holiday, and Kristaps Porzingis—are gone, and one of them—Jayson Tatum—is unavailable.
A high-octane offense has been the focus during training camp as the Celtics look to navigate their new roster, but they aren’t abandoning their recent roots.
“We'd still like to shoot a lot of threes,” Xavier Tillman said in Memphis on Wednesday afternoon.
Threes may (or may not) be at center of Celtics offense
Boston’s big-man position took the biggest hit in the three-point department. Horford and Porzingis are two of the best floor-spacing centers in the league, and now, the Celtics have been left with a core of unproven shooters.
Chris Boucher is the closest thing they have to a legitimate floor-spacer, but he’s only shot above 38% once (2020-21). Luka Garza has shown flashes of a three-ball, and Tillman lit up the gym last preseason. Outside of that, Neemias Queta and rookie Amari Williams have never been three-point shooters.
Tillman is hoping to fill the void. “That'll be important for my offensive role, to be able to space the floor, especially on the taller seven-footer defenders that will be guarding me,” Tillman said. “Being able to space them out.”
But perhaps more important than the specific number of threes is the way the Celtics’ offense will operate. The same drive-and-kick game that thrived could struggle.
Tatum is elite at drawing two defenders and making the right kick-out. Jaylen Brown will pick up some of that slack, as will White, Pritchard, and Anfernee Simons, but the spacing will be different.
With Horford and Porzingis gone, the Celtics’ won’t have many five-out lineups to go to. Role players will have to adjust their own shot profiles to what fits best. But most of it can’t be predetermined.
“Try to continue to do what I've done well,” Sam Hauser said of his three-point goals. “And then it's kind of hard to say how teams are going to guard us, because we haven't played in games yet, but that's something that I feel like you can kind of work through throughout the year and figure out, 'Oh, this might work, this might work.'
“But that's why you're putting all the work in the offseason. It's off-the-dribble stuff, or maybe it's making two or three different cuts, come off a hand off, throw back, come back up, and shooting it, that type of stuff. But it's hard to say right now how it's gonna look.”
Teams around the league don’t know what the Celtics’ offense will look like this year. To a certain degree, the Celtics don’t know what the Celtics’ offense will look like.
Boston’s three-point-heavy offense could be the solution. It could fade away with the bulk of last year’s core. There’s no way to tell until the ball hits the hardwood at the start of the season.
“That's kind of just flow of the game, reading the defense, [and] taking what they give you,” said Hauser. “And if they're not giving you anything, you're gonna have to find different ways to do it. And that's something that I feel like a lot of us are gonna have to work through this year, and that's a good thing.”