After steamrolling through the regular season (64-18) and the playoffs (16-3) towards their league best 18th title last season, the Boston Celtics are struggling halfway into the season with a 29-12 record.
While their record is third best in the league, they are way behind the league leading Cleveland Cavaliers (34-6) and the Oklahoma City Thunder (34-7). This is a far cry from last season when they secured the best record in the NBA with six games to go. Clinching the best record in the NBA means having homecourt advantage all throughout the playoffs.
Despite their dominant win over the short-handed Orlando Magic yesterday, the Celtics have an 8-7 win-loss record over their past 15 games including embarrassing home losses to the Sacramento Kings, Toronto Raptors, and Indiana Pacers. They have lost four of the seven games in the friendly confines of the TD Garden. To put things in context, the Celtics only lost four games at home the entire 2023-24 season.
After a brutal 110-97 home loss to the lottery bound Toronto Raptors recently, former All-Star Kristaps Porzingis vented, “I thought we had no spirit, with no personality today as a team. It’s weird to say. We have high character people, but things are not going our way. We’re a step slow here, there. Just no spirit, no personality.”
If you look at the stats and despite their month-long slump, Boston is still among the best two-way teams in the league. They are currently the fourth best offensive team (117.5 points) and sixth in points allowed (108.7) with the third-best differential (8.8 points) behind the Cavs and the Thunder.
Deeper analysis shows that the Celtics have been losing simply because of their three-point shooting slump.
The Celtics are taking around 55% of their total field-goal attempts (91 per game) from three-point range this season and are just making 36.2% (15th in the league) of them. This is down from their 38.8% mark last season. If they take 55 shots out of 100 from range and only make 36% of them or about 20 shots, that only generates 60 points as against their mark last season wherein the same number of shots would have produced 64 points.
Excluding their last win over the Magic where they shot 46% from range with fewer shots (37), the Celtics have only made 34% of their three-points shots.
Given their propensity for the three-point shot, opposing teams have been switching perimeter screens and guarding and challenging the Celtics’ shooters more closely, limiting clean looks.
The Celtics have been countering these closeouts by attacking the paint more but they are also being challenged at the rim by weakside defenders and of course, that only means two points.
Still, the defending champions have lots of time to turn it around and their rout of the Orlando Magic could be the start.
Celtic coach Joe Mazzulla said the team’s current struggles is “a beautiful place to be in.” He also stressed that the team is not changing its shot selection. He added, “I do know is we have to keep up the process of fighting for the best shot, giving up the best shots, making the necessary plays to win, executing, building trust, building accountability amongst each other. We just must continue to work that process with each other.”
raffyrledesma@yahoo.com
