Something is quietly breaking the Celtics' offense and it’s not the threes

It's no secret that the Boston Celtics have had a hard time putting the ball in the basket through two games against the New York Knicks. They have been the least efficient of the eight remaining teams by far, shooting just 35.6 percent from the field and 25.0 percent from deep. For perspective, the Denver Nuggets have been seventh-worst with 41.2/36.2 shooting splits.

That's quite the difference. Speaking of, they're scoring far less efficiently than they did in the regular season. Their splits have each dropped by about 10 points, which has resulted in a stunning shift in success.

If you're curious where the regression is coming from, the answer is all over. WEEI's Justin Turpin calculated the drop-off for Boston's top eight rotation players, and it is not pretty.

Sure, there's an element of luck that goes into such a drastic dip. The Celtics have missed plenty of shots that they'd spent their entire 82-game campaign sinking. When the fall-off is universal like this, it can't be all luck... right?

The Celtics have played directly into the Knicks' defensive gameplan.

That's right. As the old playoff slogan used to say, it's not luck.

It would be pretty unfair not to credit New York and the way they've gone all-in on protecting the paint. After they were torn to shreds at the end of Game 1's first half, the Knicks started to put heavy pressure on Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown every time they'd go to the paint. It was the driving force behind the "The Celtics settled for too many threes" discourse after they dropped the series opener.

The Jays would drive. New York would collapse. The Jays would kick. The Celtics would miss the open looks.

That's how it went.

In Game 2, Boston didn't lean as heavily on threes. In fact, they attempted 20 fewer than they did two days prior. Yet, the result was the same -- a disappointing 20-point collapse.

Even with the extra two-point attempts that everyone was begging for, their best looks came from deep. If you're curious about the shots that they got in the midst of their meltdown, you can check out Jack Simone and I breaking it down in the video below:

With New York looking to help on drives, the Celtics need to have good spacing to ensure that they're able to create open shots from in and outside of the arc.

You know what would've been a great time for great spacing? The final possession of the game.

This play was a mess as soon as the screen didn't do its job at the top of the key, but Tatum gets triple-teamed once he drives to the paint because the spacing is bad. Al Horford is standing right in front of the rim and allows OG Anunoby to easily help over onto JT.

Tatum is also at fault here because he dribbles directly towards Brown, who is being guarded by Mikal Bridges. You could argue that Brown should move when he sees this happening, but it's a quick development.

The poor spacing was a trend throughout the second half. There were several instances where there was a Celtics player standing right in front of the basket while another was looking to drive.

This repeated mistake made it so easy on the Knicks to execute their defensive gameplan. They were essentially being given a free help defender on drives without the risk of giving up an open shot.

It didn't happen every trip up the floor, but here are a few examples of Boston falling victim to this same issue.

There are different reasons for each player's position in these clips. Whether it was a late roll off of a screen, a failed post-up attempt, or just plain being out of position, the Celtics made things so much harder on themselves at a time when they couldn't afford to do so.

For more on the spacing, check out this morning's How 'Bout Them Celtics breakdown below: