A little more than halfway through the 2022-23 NBA season, the Boston Celtics are increasing their grip on the top seed in the Eastern Conference with a 31-12 record. The Celtics are second in the league in offense and fifth in defense, according to Cleaning The Glass. Boston is outscoring the opposition by 7.2 points per 100 possessions, a differential that leads the league by more than one point per 100 possessions over the second-best mark.
The Celtics countered the absence of Robert Williams III by improving their depth, gathering contributions from up and down the roster. More importantly, last summer’s acquisition of Malcolm Brogdon added a legitimate point guard to a Celtics team whose lack of offensive structure and organization was apparent in last season’s Finals.
With the first half of the season complete, here are three encouraging statistics for the green jerseys.
7.7% of the Celtics' shot selection is long twos
A certain demographic of viewers will opine that there’s nothing wrong with taking a dribble or two inside the three-point arc and lifting for a 17-foot jumper.
There’s an element of truth to that, but only if you can make that shot at a 45-48-percent clip.
If that isn’t you, the current basketball economy calls for getting to the rim as much as possible and taking 3s. No matter how you slice it, it’s inherently more valuable to take a big step backwards for a shot worth 50% more than a long two is worth.
The Celtics recognize that, and they’ve really bought into the times. Almost 44 percent of their shots are threes, according to Cleaning The Glass. The second largest portion of Boston’s shot diet is at the rim, at a little more than 30 percent of their total.
Most of the long two diet comes from Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, but that’s OK because they’re both exceptionally good shooters from those distances.
All of that is to say, in terms of vacuumized shot selection, the Celtics are doing all the right things.
10th in free throw rate and fourth in turnover rate
As a branch from the previous point, the health of the Celtics’ shot selection is supported by excellent ball security and strong dead-ball offense.
The Celtics don’t take a lot of inefficient twos, they get to the rim and take a ton of threes, they get to the free throw line, and they give themselves a chance of scoring at least two points on nearly 87% of their possessions.
It’s everything you want out of an NBA offense.
38% of the opposition's shots come in the midrange
The Celtics aren’t the defense-first team they were when things finally clicked last season. But, applying the concept of efficient shot selection to the other end of the court, Boston is doing an excellent job of controlling the opponent’s diet of offense.
Nearly 40% of the shots the Celtics allow are 2s outside of the rim. A third of the opponent shot diet is threes. That means less than 29% of the opposition’s shots come at the rim, an incredible effort by Boston’s defense.
When you roster Al Horford and Williams III, you naturally have rim repellent in the form of two savvy big men. But, the Celtics also have the personnel to be switch-heavy in their defensive schemes. So, they’re not going to allow much dribble penetration. If teams can’t get inside on your defense, they will inevitably have a large diet of threes and midrange shots. Allowing opponents to expend a third of their shot diet on threes is totally fine, if not expected, when you do such an excellent job of taking away the rim.
All in all, Boston is taking away the rim and encouraging opponents to live on the most inefficient shot in basketball. If that means living with some bad three-point luck from time to time, so be it.
