After a rough opening-day loss to the Pistons, the Celtics have bounced back by winning three straight games at home over the Knicks, Bulls, and Nets. That included two helpings of Jayson Tatum heroics, with a massive blowout sandwiched in between. But all is not well. Despite winning the games, the Celtics have not been winning on the margins, which is the key to their regular season dominance.
Joe Mazzulla has built the team around gaining advantages over opponents, especially getting up more shots, more three-point attempts, creating more turnovers, and pulling down more rebounds. Boston excelled in these areas last season, and it led to 56 wins and a two seed despite much lower expectations.
The idea was that this season the team would have an uptick in talent, extra depth and durability, and be able to crush the margins even further. However, through four games, that’s not what we’ve seen at all.
Celtics needed Tatum buzzer-beater to overcome Nets in overtime
And again on Tuesday night, though the Celtics pulled out a dramatic overtime victory on a Jayson Tatum buzzer-beater and the vibes were high, they lost the battle on the margins decisively and disappointingly to the Nets.
When all was said and done, the Nets had 97 shot attempts to the Celtics’ 93, Brooklyn was 17/50 from three-point range while Boston was just 11/41, and they outrebounded the Celtics 61-55, including 12-11 on the offensive glass. The Celtics did win the turnover war, but just barely, with a 16-14 edge.
This is very un-Celtics-like, and it’s a major part of the reason that Boston needed overtime and a Herculean effort from Tatum just to get past the Nets at home. It’s obviously still very early in the season and a minuscule sample size, but so far, we’re not seeing the possession-maxxing scheme hit its stride like we expected.
Celtics can do much better at rebounding, turnovers, and 3-pt shooting
The one area where we’ve seen the Celtics excel in this regard has been in forcing turnovers, thanks to their chaotic new defensive looks. But teams have done a good job keeping them off the three-point line, and Boston has had a couple of poor shooting performances. The rebounding was supposed to be a massive advantage as well, but they’ve been bested in three of four games in that regard.
Mitchell Robinson doesn’t look comfortable at all and has struggled to adjust to life as Boston’s starting center. Payton Pritchard has had one great quarter and otherwise has barely been heard from. Mazzulla is still trying to figure out his rotations, and the wing players have had a hard time getting into any kind of rhythm.
It’s fair to allow some time for everyone to settle in, and there’s no reason to think this roster won’t gel and get on track. If anything, perhaps it’s a good thing that they’re winning games in spite of these issues. But still, it’s definitely not what we’ve been hoping to see all offseason, and if it keeps up much longer, there may be real reason for concern.
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