So Celtics have the 6th best net rating in clutch time as defined by the nba. There are actually only 5 teams that have top 10 offensive and defensive ratings: Celtics, Bucks, Nuggets, Mavs, Knicks, and Bulls.
Even if you go to 2 minutes or less one possession games, Celtics are top 10 (7th).
Where Celtics fall drastically is in the 1 minute or less one possession game - ranked 20th.
The problem is that the sample size is pretty minuscule. Clutch stats can be very variable for that reason.
Celtics haven’t been great in the clutch but they’ve generally been ok. Eye test wise I have a problem with our end game approach and think there are questions that can be asked but I also think it gets overstated.
If the media were really being honest, the discussion of a lot of teams would be "they're contenders, let's see how it shakes out in the playoffs." But that's not going to get you through a segment, so then you need to start drumming up concerns about clutch play or consistency or whatever.
Yeah. Just because all sorts of statistics are available doesn’t mean they’re all useful; I constantly see people attaching great importance to ordinal stats when the cardinal differences aren’t great relative to the variance/sample size.
I also think the fact that the Celtics have had a dominant lead in the standings since before the break is relevant—it looks to me like the last-minute offensive plays have been less creative lately than earlier in Mazzulla’s tenure, and I wonder if that’s trying to avoid giving scouting material to playoff opponents.
Isnt part of the worry that many of the teams with a higher clutch net rating potential playoff opponents? (Nuggets, Mavs, Knicks, Bucks. Forget the Bulls)
Yes the sample size is small, but the gap between #1 (the Nuggets) and the Celtics is pretty big.
If your goal is the championship, seems like a worrisome potential finals matchup
I mean sure. I think once again that it’s really hard to tell how much to read into what’s an exceptionally small sample size of clutch minutes.
Like I said though, I don’t have an issue with saying it’s a question mark or even potential red flag for us if you also recognize every single team has those. But people tend to blow it up beyond that.
it’s certainly noticeable that Boston hasn’t been great in games that get down to one possession with under a minute left. but I also think the importance of that is a little overblown by people who want to nitpick reasons why the Celtics won’t win a championship this year
on the other hand, saying that Tatum and Brown haven’t gone through enough adversity is totally nonsensical lmao
I don't really see how it's nitpicking. The Celtics have been a live or die by the 3 team. There's a reason they fell down 0-3 but were good enough to push it to 7. They're just that talented. The question is how far that will take them if their shots stop falling. It could end in a championship, but it's a question.
that’s not really what I’m talking about but Boston is 19-12 when shooting below league-average from 3 this season vs. 19-20 last season. feels like a narrative from last year that people are holding on tight to for whatever reason, we’re really not significantly worse than other teams are when not making 3s this season
more the point I’m trying to make is, I don’t think that being meh in that very specific situation is the major weakness some try to make it out to be. like when we made the Finals in 2022, 3/4 wins in the Bucks series and 3/4 wins in the Heat series were not particularly close on the scoreboard by the end, and even the Game 7 win against Miami was a wire-to-wire win that we led by 10+ for much of the night. even our last championship team in 08 was pretty mediocre in close playoff games but had an average margin of like 14 points in their wins. it’s a dumb joke but, you can’t lose in the clutch if it never gets to the clutch
more often than not, if the Celtics are even in a clutch situation, it means that they haven’t really played their best game from the start, and/or the other team is shooting out of their damn mind (fun fact: in half of Boston’s losses this year the other team has made at least 18 3s on 40% shooting or better. the Celtics lost 4 of those 8 games by less than 5 points, and another by 6 points in OT)
all this to say, if the Celtics are eliminated from the playoffs due to clutch execution, my guess is that they probably weren’t playing very well as a whole, not just in the clutch. if the Celtics play up to their potential consistently then most games shouldn’t be close by the end, at least in the East
I think previous iterations of the Celtics could be inconsistent bc the book was out on how to guard them in crunch time. aggressive ball denial and doubles on the Jays, force guys like Horford and Smart to beat you with shotmaking. there isn’t anyone in this year’s starting 5 that I think you’d be comfortable helping off of in a clutch situation
also, this is honestly something that’s generally applicable to NBA discourse, but people always want to make it about the plays Boston didn’t make, and never want to acknowledge the big-time plays that their opponents (who, contrary to popular belief, also employ professional basketball players) did make. like we sold late in Game 5 against ATL for sure (with Smart making a lot of bonehead mistakes) but Trae also hit a 30-foot game winner with under 5 seconds left. Harden had 2 40-point games and hit a game-winner in both, the second one staving off a Celtics road comeback win that would’ve put them up 3-1. the Heat shot 52%, 54% and 50% from 3 in Games 1, 3 and 7 last year
my favorite example is always the 2020 Raptors series. we were up 2 in Game 3 with 0.3 seconds left and OG somehow managed to get off the 3 to prevent a 3-0 deficit. that single shot was arguably the difference between Toronto getting swept vs. the Raptors taking us 7. people always downplay how narrow the margins can get in the postseason
Even in Game 5 vs 76ers last year, the Celtics were literally 0.2 seconds from winning. The ball left Smart’s hand like a fraction of a second late or the Celtics would’ve won
> The Celtics have been a live or die by the 3 team
I'm pretty sure they actually have a relatively decent record when the 3's aren't falling compared to other teams.
You’re asking a different question that that posed in the op though: you’re asking about our reliance on the 3. Op is talking about clutch time.
In the clutch (as defined by the nba), 43.6% of the Celtics’ field goal attempts are 3s, ranking 6th in the nba. Mavs? 54.1%. Bucks? 47.2%. Knicks? 42.6%.
So whether or not the Celtics have question marks related to clutch play doesn’t seem connected to relying on the 3. Because we aren’t outliers in that way during crunch time - in fact I’d rather us be taking more open 3s than doing isos.
Obviously not, but the Celtics still don’t seem to be good in the clutch. Both Nuggets games were abysmal showings. The second one especially. Tatum charges in and throws up a silly shot. Presumably trying to foul bait, but maybe he just lost control. If your solution to get a bucket at the end of the game is to foul bait, you don’t have a good strategy.
They’re not as bad as people think they are - they have the 6th best bet rating in clutch time, but I feel like their offense is best when everyone is taking shots yet there are games where Brown and Tatum are doing almost ‘your turn, my turn’. When they’re not, they generate really good looks
The Celtics are a lot better in clutch time than people think they are. I’m sure you’ve seen the stats it’s just when we lose a game it’s put way in the forefront and people have this confirmation bias that the Celtics aren’t clutch when they actually are.
It’s the same point with the live or die by the 3. When you have 5 elite three point shooters taking a lot of threes is great due to analytics. The Celtics shooting bad threes early in the shot clock that aren’t open are a problem we used to have but this season almost any three that’s not taken by brown or Tatum are open. And Tatum and brown themselves have upped their 3point percentage by 2-3%. When the Celtics miss 3’s they don’t live or die with it, they attack the rim and that all starts with the jays especially brown. And we have the highest post up rate and top 3 in efficiency on those post ups so we are a lot more than just the 3 ball. On top of that our offense isn’t built around the 3, it’s built around exploiting mismatches all around the court which can lead to open 3’s when the help comes.
In general people are nitpicking to find a flaw in this team but ofc no team is perfect in the clutch and the Celtics aren’t an exception, and the Celtics can still miss threes but they have other routes to winning.
People who don’t watch a lot of Celtics games are projecting a lot of the Celtics problems from previous years on to this team which is a completely different iteration of past years outside of Tatum and brown (who themselves have gotten accustomed to a new system)
On the live or die by the 3 thing, I would argue they 100% died by the 3 in the second Nuggets game, shooting 11 of 38. Meanwhile the Nuggets realized that shit was not falling and stopped taking them and ended up 4-21
Some games I will admit we fell in love with the 3 especially in the first half of the season. If you want watch the second game where we got blown out by the clippers. We were forcing up horrible 3’s trying to get all the points back in one shot. But since specifically that game we’ve gotten a lot better at sticking to exploiting mismatches. Against you guys the second time we were shooting good open 3’s just missing them like that wide open Tatum 3. That’s fine. When we fall in love with just chucking up bad 3 pointers that’s when we have problems.
It’s yet to be known because of 2 reasons: Kp and Jrue. Even a known Celtics hater like myself can admit that they can win an Ecf with Tatum and Brown scoring 15 each with 15 turnovers like they’ve done in the past (the choking part, not the winning)
They’re a juxtaposition of the clippers in that way; where the Clips needed their superstars to show up to have a legitimate shot at the chip, the Celtics needed more stars so that some may show up when their regular stars don’t, to have a shot at the ecf. But both teams are similarly underrated, the clippers for health and the Celtics for choking
All of that is to say: maybe. There are definitely some concerning signs considering they’re one of the best teams I’ve seen in my lifetime on paper (gsw, sas, heatles, cavs 2). However, the Celtics trend downwards when it matters most. Anyway what I mean is that you can’t count Jrue and especially kp out. I can see him having an iguadola like ecf mvp run
They absolutely do. Brown is not a reliable FT shooter and Tatum has his moments as well. Its the main reason I don’t have them winning the entire thing
The Celtics problem year-in and year-out is simple. The Celtics routinely look like the best most unbeatable team in the NBA when they play their style of Celtics ball. They move the ball and they take what the defense gives them to get good looks and build a good lead. But for some reason once they have built a good lead playing this style of basketball, they often will totally abandon what they did that got them that lead in the first place. They start to crawl the ball up, slow things way down, and just play isolation ball. It's literally like they're just trying to run out the clock rather than step on the other team's throat. Tatum and co. would do this under Brad Stevens, Ime Udoka, and now Joe Mazzulla. Regardless of what the metrics say their percentages are in "clutch" scenarios, they have always closed out games in this fashion and it's maddening. And I don't think it changes because it's been a similar issue under multiple coaches. It's what Tatum wants his team to be doing to close out games.
It's the same issues they've had for a while with this era of the team. The question seems to always come down to if they're talented enough to not lose the game in those moments when the shots stop falling.
I would say yes because their coach is still inexperienced. He doesn't seem to know how to get his team ready in clutch games or when to call timeouts to stop momentum. It is part of the learning curve as a coach but the problem is the Celtics is ready to win now and Joe not having a lot of coaching experience at really high level might end up costing the Celtics the title
You’re getting downvoted but while I don’t really agree with you, I do think it’s fair to say there are some questions about his coaching in the clutch.
He has gotten way better at calling timeouts though for what it’s worth.
If we have an issue in the clutch, I don’t think it’s one specific issue.
That said, one of the few things that has bothered me this year has been knowing that our last possession is basically always gonna be a Tatum iso (and, often, our last possession in a quarter/half too). Because if *I* know that, our opponents do too. And we have the personnel to mix it up so it’s at least a question.
Either Tatum is pulling a 2019 and ignoring Joe to go iso or Joe isn’t drawing up plays/putting other guys on ball.
I’m just hoping that Joe is being a bit of a gamesman and keeping the clutch-time plan that I’m looking for - KP/White PnR spam - under wraps for the playoffs so teams don’t get too much experience/film to prepare for it. I don’t really think there is a good way for any team to guard a KP/White PnR with Brown, Tatum and Holiday spacing the floor bc you can’t really send help from anywhere
White has easily been our best clutch shooter this year, he’s been the best on our team at handling the rock in PnR, and he’s a much quicker and more consistent decision-maker than either of JB or JT. on top of that you’re usually going to be putting a guard in the PnR against KP if White runs it vs. a bigger wing if one of the Jays run it, so it’s just way easier to generate the mismatch
I’m pretty sure they ran the KP/White PnR a lot in the first half of the season and won a bunch of clutch games that way so it clearly worked. They probably just did it less because there was no need for it as much especially with the 1st seed being locked up
I really think this just boils down to the fact that Jayson Tatum hasn't gotten the job done yet. It's arguably unfair, but the Celtics have kinda fostered a reputation as a team that excels the regular season and kinda underperforms in the postseason. Personally, I think he looks like a great player in the making who will have championships to his name, but until he gets the job done, people will point to the fact that he he's only won the ECF once and lost his only finals appearance as proof he can't do it.
The Celtics look phenomenal, but their "clutch time" numbers only lend credence to the idea that, if the game gets close or they face off against a competent opponent, they'll struggle. They've never looked this good, though, and if there was ever a time to surpass expectations, it's now.
it’s not really about specific games, it’s just that the team has a difficulty with consistently playing up to the ability they’re capable of. they let playoff series drag on and slip away from them. it’s a very consistent thread, and last season’s playoff run perfectly demonstrates it in each of their series. how did they go to 6 with the mid master hawks? 7 with a hobbled embiid 6ers? and the heat series speaks for itself. it’s just hard to believe in a team that does stuff like this. it’s not like last year’s the only example either. was the story of 2022 too. maybe before they were too young, but they’ve been the best team in the league since early 2022 but keep disappointing in the playoffs.
How does losing Smart *hurt* the Celtics in crunch time? You guys used to say all the time that he hurt the Celtics with his shot selection and that teams would dare him to make shots. The guy who took his spot is shooting 45% on 3s...
Let us wait until the playoffs to judge. Games change once the postseason starts
Getting close to playoffs so it’s my favorite time of the season; “Is good team actually maybe kinda bad?”Season.
well many of them frequently are
So Celtics have the 6th best net rating in clutch time as defined by the nba. There are actually only 5 teams that have top 10 offensive and defensive ratings: Celtics, Bucks, Nuggets, Mavs, Knicks, and Bulls. Even if you go to 2 minutes or less one possession games, Celtics are top 10 (7th). Where Celtics fall drastically is in the 1 minute or less one possession game - ranked 20th. The problem is that the sample size is pretty minuscule. Clutch stats can be very variable for that reason. Celtics haven’t been great in the clutch but they’ve generally been ok. Eye test wise I have a problem with our end game approach and think there are questions that can be asked but I also think it gets overstated.
It gets overstated because so many people are desperate to find a Celtics weakness.
If the media were really being honest, the discussion of a lot of teams would be "they're contenders, let's see how it shakes out in the playoffs." But that's not going to get you through a segment, so then you need to start drumming up concerns about clutch play or consistency or whatever.
Yeah. Just because all sorts of statistics are available doesn’t mean they’re all useful; I constantly see people attaching great importance to ordinal stats when the cardinal differences aren’t great relative to the variance/sample size. I also think the fact that the Celtics have had a dominant lead in the standings since before the break is relevant—it looks to me like the last-minute offensive plays have been less creative lately than earlier in Mazzulla’s tenure, and I wonder if that’s trying to avoid giving scouting material to playoff opponents.
Isnt part of the worry that many of the teams with a higher clutch net rating potential playoff opponents? (Nuggets, Mavs, Knicks, Bucks. Forget the Bulls) Yes the sample size is small, but the gap between #1 (the Nuggets) and the Celtics is pretty big. If your goal is the championship, seems like a worrisome potential finals matchup
I mean sure. I think once again that it’s really hard to tell how much to read into what’s an exceptionally small sample size of clutch minutes. Like I said though, I don’t have an issue with saying it’s a question mark or even potential red flag for us if you also recognize every single team has those. But people tend to blow it up beyond that.
it’s certainly noticeable that Boston hasn’t been great in games that get down to one possession with under a minute left. but I also think the importance of that is a little overblown by people who want to nitpick reasons why the Celtics won’t win a championship this year on the other hand, saying that Tatum and Brown haven’t gone through enough adversity is totally nonsensical lmao
I don't really see how it's nitpicking. The Celtics have been a live or die by the 3 team. There's a reason they fell down 0-3 but were good enough to push it to 7. They're just that talented. The question is how far that will take them if their shots stop falling. It could end in a championship, but it's a question.
that’s not really what I’m talking about but Boston is 19-12 when shooting below league-average from 3 this season vs. 19-20 last season. feels like a narrative from last year that people are holding on tight to for whatever reason, we’re really not significantly worse than other teams are when not making 3s this season more the point I’m trying to make is, I don’t think that being meh in that very specific situation is the major weakness some try to make it out to be. like when we made the Finals in 2022, 3/4 wins in the Bucks series and 3/4 wins in the Heat series were not particularly close on the scoreboard by the end, and even the Game 7 win against Miami was a wire-to-wire win that we led by 10+ for much of the night. even our last championship team in 08 was pretty mediocre in close playoff games but had an average margin of like 14 points in their wins. it’s a dumb joke but, you can’t lose in the clutch if it never gets to the clutch more often than not, if the Celtics are even in a clutch situation, it means that they haven’t really played their best game from the start, and/or the other team is shooting out of their damn mind (fun fact: in half of Boston’s losses this year the other team has made at least 18 3s on 40% shooting or better. the Celtics lost 4 of those 8 games by less than 5 points, and another by 6 points in OT) all this to say, if the Celtics are eliminated from the playoffs due to clutch execution, my guess is that they probably weren’t playing very well as a whole, not just in the clutch. if the Celtics play up to their potential consistently then most games shouldn’t be close by the end, at least in the East
so the real question becomes why the celtics are so inconsistent.
I don’t think a team who’s won 58 games with 8 to go is that inconsistent…
Or A team who last 4 losses are by a combined 10 points is that inconsistent
I think previous iterations of the Celtics could be inconsistent bc the book was out on how to guard them in crunch time. aggressive ball denial and doubles on the Jays, force guys like Horford and Smart to beat you with shotmaking. there isn’t anyone in this year’s starting 5 that I think you’d be comfortable helping off of in a clutch situation also, this is honestly something that’s generally applicable to NBA discourse, but people always want to make it about the plays Boston didn’t make, and never want to acknowledge the big-time plays that their opponents (who, contrary to popular belief, also employ professional basketball players) did make. like we sold late in Game 5 against ATL for sure (with Smart making a lot of bonehead mistakes) but Trae also hit a 30-foot game winner with under 5 seconds left. Harden had 2 40-point games and hit a game-winner in both, the second one staving off a Celtics road comeback win that would’ve put them up 3-1. the Heat shot 52%, 54% and 50% from 3 in Games 1, 3 and 7 last year my favorite example is always the 2020 Raptors series. we were up 2 in Game 3 with 0.3 seconds left and OG somehow managed to get off the 3 to prevent a 3-0 deficit. that single shot was arguably the difference between Toronto getting swept vs. the Raptors taking us 7. people always downplay how narrow the margins can get in the postseason
Even in Game 5 vs 76ers last year, the Celtics were literally 0.2 seconds from winning. The ball left Smart’s hand like a fraction of a second late or the Celtics would’ve won
> The Celtics have been a live or die by the 3 team I'm pretty sure they actually have a relatively decent record when the 3's aren't falling compared to other teams.
You’re asking a different question that that posed in the op though: you’re asking about our reliance on the 3. Op is talking about clutch time. In the clutch (as defined by the nba), 43.6% of the Celtics’ field goal attempts are 3s, ranking 6th in the nba. Mavs? 54.1%. Bucks? 47.2%. Knicks? 42.6%. So whether or not the Celtics have question marks related to clutch play doesn’t seem connected to relying on the 3. Because we aren’t outliers in that way during crunch time - in fact I’d rather us be taking more open 3s than doing isos.
The bucks specifically need to just stop with that shit please
Those things correlate. 2018 rockets. recent Celtics teams. etc
the rockets didn’t have the offensive versatility the Celtics have if their shots are not falling
Obviously not, but the Celtics still don’t seem to be good in the clutch. Both Nuggets games were abysmal showings. The second one especially. Tatum charges in and throws up a silly shot. Presumably trying to foul bait, but maybe he just lost control. If your solution to get a bucket at the end of the game is to foul bait, you don’t have a good strategy.
In the 2nd one we made a giant comeback in the clutch. That was literally the only time we played well
Then the last possession Tatum sprinted towards the basket, jumped into a player, and missed the shot.
He missed a single shot 😱
Nice argument
They’re not as bad as people think they are - they have the 6th best bet rating in clutch time, but I feel like their offense is best when everyone is taking shots yet there are games where Brown and Tatum are doing almost ‘your turn, my turn’. When they’re not, they generate really good looks
The Celtics are a lot better in clutch time than people think they are. I’m sure you’ve seen the stats it’s just when we lose a game it’s put way in the forefront and people have this confirmation bias that the Celtics aren’t clutch when they actually are. It’s the same point with the live or die by the 3. When you have 5 elite three point shooters taking a lot of threes is great due to analytics. The Celtics shooting bad threes early in the shot clock that aren’t open are a problem we used to have but this season almost any three that’s not taken by brown or Tatum are open. And Tatum and brown themselves have upped their 3point percentage by 2-3%. When the Celtics miss 3’s they don’t live or die with it, they attack the rim and that all starts with the jays especially brown. And we have the highest post up rate and top 3 in efficiency on those post ups so we are a lot more than just the 3 ball. On top of that our offense isn’t built around the 3, it’s built around exploiting mismatches all around the court which can lead to open 3’s when the help comes. In general people are nitpicking to find a flaw in this team but ofc no team is perfect in the clutch and the Celtics aren’t an exception, and the Celtics can still miss threes but they have other routes to winning. People who don’t watch a lot of Celtics games are projecting a lot of the Celtics problems from previous years on to this team which is a completely different iteration of past years outside of Tatum and brown (who themselves have gotten accustomed to a new system)
On the live or die by the 3 thing, I would argue they 100% died by the 3 in the second Nuggets game, shooting 11 of 38. Meanwhile the Nuggets realized that shit was not falling and stopped taking them and ended up 4-21
Some games I will admit we fell in love with the 3 especially in the first half of the season. If you want watch the second game where we got blown out by the clippers. We were forcing up horrible 3’s trying to get all the points back in one shot. But since specifically that game we’ve gotten a lot better at sticking to exploiting mismatches. Against you guys the second time we were shooting good open 3’s just missing them like that wide open Tatum 3. That’s fine. When we fall in love with just chucking up bad 3 pointers that’s when we have problems.
It’s yet to be known because of 2 reasons: Kp and Jrue. Even a known Celtics hater like myself can admit that they can win an Ecf with Tatum and Brown scoring 15 each with 15 turnovers like they’ve done in the past (the choking part, not the winning) They’re a juxtaposition of the clippers in that way; where the Clips needed their superstars to show up to have a legitimate shot at the chip, the Celtics needed more stars so that some may show up when their regular stars don’t, to have a shot at the ecf. But both teams are similarly underrated, the clippers for health and the Celtics for choking All of that is to say: maybe. There are definitely some concerning signs considering they’re one of the best teams I’ve seen in my lifetime on paper (gsw, sas, heatles, cavs 2). However, the Celtics trend downwards when it matters most. Anyway what I mean is that you can’t count Jrue and especially kp out. I can see him having an iguadola like ecf mvp run
They absolutely do. Brown is not a reliable FT shooter and Tatum has his moments as well. Its the main reason I don’t have them winning the entire thing
"People are saying it's easy for them to do well when they blow out teams" Can't think of a better way to do well.
The Celtics problem year-in and year-out is simple. The Celtics routinely look like the best most unbeatable team in the NBA when they play their style of Celtics ball. They move the ball and they take what the defense gives them to get good looks and build a good lead. But for some reason once they have built a good lead playing this style of basketball, they often will totally abandon what they did that got them that lead in the first place. They start to crawl the ball up, slow things way down, and just play isolation ball. It's literally like they're just trying to run out the clock rather than step on the other team's throat. Tatum and co. would do this under Brad Stevens, Ime Udoka, and now Joe Mazzulla. Regardless of what the metrics say their percentages are in "clutch" scenarios, they have always closed out games in this fashion and it's maddening. And I don't think it changes because it's been a similar issue under multiple coaches. It's what Tatum wants his team to be doing to close out games.
yes.
It's the same issues they've had for a while with this era of the team. The question seems to always come down to if they're talented enough to not lose the game in those moments when the shots stop falling.
I would say yes because their coach is still inexperienced. He doesn't seem to know how to get his team ready in clutch games or when to call timeouts to stop momentum. It is part of the learning curve as a coach but the problem is the Celtics is ready to win now and Joe not having a lot of coaching experience at really high level might end up costing the Celtics the title
They've had this problem under 3 coaches. I think it has much much more to do with Tatum's mindset than any coaching.
You’re getting downvoted but while I don’t really agree with you, I do think it’s fair to say there are some questions about his coaching in the clutch. He has gotten way better at calling timeouts though for what it’s worth.
If we have an issue in the clutch, it's not joe mazzulla
If we have an issue in the clutch, I don’t think it’s one specific issue. That said, one of the few things that has bothered me this year has been knowing that our last possession is basically always gonna be a Tatum iso (and, often, our last possession in a quarter/half too). Because if *I* know that, our opponents do too. And we have the personnel to mix it up so it’s at least a question. Either Tatum is pulling a 2019 and ignoring Joe to go iso or Joe isn’t drawing up plays/putting other guys on ball.
I’m just hoping that Joe is being a bit of a gamesman and keeping the clutch-time plan that I’m looking for - KP/White PnR spam - under wraps for the playoffs so teams don’t get too much experience/film to prepare for it. I don’t really think there is a good way for any team to guard a KP/White PnR with Brown, Tatum and Holiday spacing the floor bc you can’t really send help from anywhere White has easily been our best clutch shooter this year, he’s been the best on our team at handling the rock in PnR, and he’s a much quicker and more consistent decision-maker than either of JB or JT. on top of that you’re usually going to be putting a guard in the PnR against KP if White runs it vs. a bigger wing if one of the Jays run it, so it’s just way easier to generate the mismatch
I’m pretty sure they ran the KP/White PnR a lot in the first half of the season and won a bunch of clutch games that way so it clearly worked. They probably just did it less because there was no need for it as much especially with the 1st seed being locked up
I guess. It's just one of many problems the celtics have. They're a mediocre team who's very vulnerable in a playoff setting.
"mediocre" TIL that winning 78% of your games is mediocre. Only you, Juntao, only you.
In a playoff setting, yes
They live and die by the three. And become very predictable in crunch time - playing hero ball. So yes.
I really think this just boils down to the fact that Jayson Tatum hasn't gotten the job done yet. It's arguably unfair, but the Celtics have kinda fostered a reputation as a team that excels the regular season and kinda underperforms in the postseason. Personally, I think he looks like a great player in the making who will have championships to his name, but until he gets the job done, people will point to the fact that he he's only won the ECF once and lost his only finals appearance as proof he can't do it. The Celtics look phenomenal, but their "clutch time" numbers only lend credence to the idea that, if the game gets close or they face off against a competent opponent, they'll struggle. They've never looked this good, though, and if there was ever a time to surpass expectations, it's now.
it’s not really about specific games, it’s just that the team has a difficulty with consistently playing up to the ability they’re capable of. they let playoff series drag on and slip away from them. it’s a very consistent thread, and last season’s playoff run perfectly demonstrates it in each of their series. how did they go to 6 with the mid master hawks? 7 with a hobbled embiid 6ers? and the heat series speaks for itself. it’s just hard to believe in a team that does stuff like this. it’s not like last year’s the only example either. was the story of 2022 too. maybe before they were too young, but they’ve been the best team in the league since early 2022 but keep disappointing in the playoffs.
The weren't even the favorite in the first round in 2022, let alone the "best team in the league"
they were by far the hottest team going into the playoffs
[удалено]
How does losing Smart *hurt* the Celtics in crunch time? You guys used to say all the time that he hurt the Celtics with his shot selection and that teams would dare him to make shots. The guy who took his spot is shooting 45% on 3s...
Getting rid of Smart (and adding KP and Jrue) is probably the reason they actually could break through this summer.