The Celtics’ success relies on the three, but does it come at the cost of consistency?
The reference point in the season that marks the start of the downturn stretch for the Celtics is the Dec. 19, 117-108 loss to the Chicago Bulls. That game was the first disappointing loss within a now 16-game period of .500 basketball for the C’s.
A lot can be said and questioned about the last month and a half for Boston, but what is for sure now, more than ever, is that the Celtics have fully embraced the three-point-shot to a fault with no intention of stopping. Monday’s 125-85 victory on the road over Golden State certainly will not help to change Joe Mazzulla’s mind about the three-ball, and even though it guided the C’s to a dominant victory, in the grand-scheme of things the reliance on the three may be harming the Celtics more than it has helped.
What Celtics fans want from the team is consistency. Unfortunately, for more than a month, they have been far from it. Inconsistency with hitting shots, inconsistency with winning games, inconsistency with the amount of points they score per game – and it all comes down to them being chronically addicted to shooting threes.
Take the last four games for example. The Celtics have won two and lost two. The two that went in their favor were dominant blowouts because they were hitting their threes at 43.5 percent (37-for-85). The other two were disappointing losses because they waisted countless offensive opportunities to score points by, instead, chucking up threes that missed, only converting at 30.1 percent (25-for-83).
So it’s clear – they hit the three at an effective rate, they win; if they are missing them, they keep shooting chose not to adjust in any way, and then they lose. It has become an endless cycle of win-loss-win-loss. Affectively meaning, the team’s success is entirely based off their ability to be lucky night-over-night with their spray-and-pray philosophy from beyond the arc.
Maybe they are content with just sticking to their ways and hoping it will work out for them, but for a team that is so talented and is supposed to be so dominant, it is certainly not reassuring to see what seems to be some level complacency for mediocrity, over this stretch, simply for the sake of being stubborn.
Moreover, assuming the Celtic’s do not change their philosophy and continue to shoot an abnormally high amount of threes, and are stuck in the same nightly inconsistency, this philosophy could prove to be very costly in a seven-game series where one or two off nights of shooting could spell the end of the season.
Of course, there is the chance that they continue to shoot the three at such a high rate and eventually just magically starting hitting them 40 to 45 percent of the time every night, but I won’t hold my breath on that. At this point, where the team has been playing .500 basketball for over a month, would it really kill them to try to take maybe 10 to 20 percent fewer threes and turn those in to two point drives where the team would have a higher chance at least coming out with some semblance of points?
This year, the team has hit the three at a 36.3 percent rate (17.8 made out of 49 attempted per game), compared to the two pointer which they hit at a 57 percent efficiency (23.9 made out of 41.9 attempted per game). So, if the Celtics elected for a two over a three just 20 percent more than they do at the current moment – roughly ten threes fewer per game – and hit the two pointer at the same rate as they do now, they would average about 11 more points a game. Theoretically, that points bump would have given the C’s five more wins over this 8-8 stretch.
Obviously, it’s another one of those statistical hypotheticals and other factors could influence a different result, but the Celtics utilized stats to come up with their philosophy, so what’s the issue with using stats to break it down. And regardless, it shows that the two can just bring a little more consistency to the team’s nightly scoring that could be a useful option when the three is not converting.
It remains to be seen if the Celtics will bring more twos to their shooting repertoire, but stagnancy will not be what brings them out of this mess of a 16-game stretch. Beating the Warriors by 40 may look cool in an overnight headline, but, in the grand scheme of the season, the continued embrace of the three point shot could be the reason for the Celtic’s downfall rather than their triumph.
Luke Graham is a digital sports content co-op for 98.5 the Sports Hub. He is currently a sophomore at Northeastern University studying communications and media studies. Follow him on X @LukeGraham05.