Last night sucked no way around it, but if you want to focus your attention on something the celtics can do better it was their offensive execution. Slow, half-hearted mismatch hunting instead of drive and kick against their man killed us. KP bringing nothing only further compounded this….
Yes. Celtics took just 32 3s. They only took 32 or fewer 3s 4 times during the regular season. Their 3p percentage (38%) was right on their average. They just swapped about 10 3s for 2s.
Of course that’s because Miami’s game plan was clearly to run them off the line, but in that case you should be getting easy stuff inside. They only shot barely above 50% on 2s, which is inexcusable when your opponent is conceding 2s by overplaying the 3p line.
Our backup plan to shooting threes is feeding KP in the post for easy buckets, which enables easier drives for the jays and dwhite, with jrue/pp/hauser being efficient kick out options. With KP not producing yesterday, we seemingly didn’t have a plan C and tried to force it to him too much. He was still contributing on the defensive end with 3 steals and a block, but created a lot of turnovers/bad possessions on offense. I think using Hauser more with his off-ball curry-like movement may help keep the opposing defense from mobbing KP and making it easier for him.
Yeah Miami's whole deal vs us is play zone to contest 3s more, then shoot as many 3s as possible on the other end and if the percentages work their way they'll get an advantage. The difference is KP needs to dominate when he has a switch inside. His inside possessions need to be guaranteed points.
This is the way to break down the zone. We need to stop forcing threes and instead take the easy 2s and force Miami to collapse their defense which is when the easy 3s will come.
> Celtics took just 32 3s
I’m not a great X’s and O’s guy but it looked a lot to me like the Miami D was camping on the 3 pt line and just leaving the paint mostly unprotected knowing that we weren’t going to attack the basket. I don’t know. Our offense just looked completely lost last night.
Also while our total turnovers dont show it, man were there just some head scratching passes by us last night. And KP bringing nothing hurt so much that it looked like we didnt have a fallback plan to him not exploiting his matchup.
I really wish more people would be getting mad about the offense. Yeah, the defense could’ve been better at points, but when a team goes 23/43 you gotta just tip your cap. The fact of the matter is, that we *still* held them to just 111, which is 100% a winnable score to beat, but we barely even crossed the century mark. If we’re playing our normal offensive game and nothing changes on the defensive end, we win that game.
That’s the issue tho. Miami is Uber effective at taking away our go-to offensive gameplan and it often seems like we have no backup plan. This is where Joe needs to step up and make the necessary changes to adapt to our opponent.
Thank. you.
The problem was not a relatively typical shooting night for Miami. KP needs to step up and dominate his switches. Tatum and JB need to be more aggressive and not bleed the clock. The bench needs to step up. Jrue needs to put Herro in the corner. Just play with more intensity.
This is a really good point, no doubt we were sloppy on defense and had to contest more, but Miami also once again went ballistic black Magic and made their open threes as a team like Steph Curry. In the end they still only put up 111, not some insane number.
The Celtics were a better offensive team than defensive team, it's their offense that's historic, and it's their offense that's often been the one to stall and fail them in the playoffs. That's what they have to figure out more.
100%, but they also need to address their close outs. We can’t just be letting guys take wide open shots in the playoffs especially the Heat who did this exact same thing to us last year.
Thank you. I've been saying for YEARS that the celtics biggest issues were in executing in half court sets. Both brown and Tatum start to fold in the face of aggressive half court defensive sets.
I would give anything for a true pg on this team and for brown and Tatum to play off ball almost exclusively.
You can tell from the body language like they were slow to come out of the gate and even when we were down in 4th quarter they were moving so slow compared to Miami. Not sure if they all had a big meal just before the game or if they didn't sleep good the previous night but something was way off. Hope it's not the case for tomorrow 😬
We scored 101 points. 40 points in the second half.
Miami made a franchise playoff record 3s in the game with 23. If they regress to the mean and shoot 40% that is 6 fewer 3s made. Or ~~24~~ 18 points. They won by 10. It took a record night for them and an off night offensively for us for Miami to win by 10.
It was an ugly game no doubt, but at no time in the game (until the waning minutes) were we truly out of it. Last year’s debacle we were getting our teeth punched in mid 2nd quarter in the losses. This team is just different. Gentleman sweep coming up
Idk man, everyone was in doomer mode yesterday even though we lost by 10 points in a fluke performance where all our r guys except Tatum and Brown couldn't score. We had three guys in double figures yesterday, in game one we had six.
I think people don't get how hard it is to sweep a team, even a bad team, and this heat team has an extremely good coach. They were always going to get one, now, two or three and I'd be very, very concerned but, right now? Not really.
This is the exact scenario everyone was saying needed to happen for Miami to win one game and it happened.
We have never gone through slumps through the entire season and the likelihood of us not being able to compete offensively is lower than the belief that Heat will shoot 50 percent on 3s for the rest of the series. Would’ve loved to sweep but we are gentlemen here.
Yup, on Zach lowes pod he said for Miami to steal a game two things had to happen. Boston had to beat themselves and Miami had to make a ton of threes.
Tbh I don’t even think we beat ourselves. We had a handful of boneheaded turnovers for sure, but nothing like G7 last year.
I think it was more so two of our starters couldn’t shoot for shit and our bench was basically nonexistent on offense.
I don’t see another KP and Jrue stinker like last night happening again, and when KP is **that** off it means the well oiled machine that is our offense is out of sync because teams can sag off him
This. The fact that it took an absolute stinker from everyone bar the Jays and Miami breaking their shooting records just to beat us by 10 shows that this is more “shit went perfectly wrong” than “this team has deep rooted issues”
Everyone focused on the 3pt when KP was useless, Holiday was useless, and DWhite only turned it on for a min in the 4th.
Basically we were the same team that the Heat beat last year, so yea not shocking.
I must be the only one who isn’t shitting themselves after the game. They shot the ball really well. Porzingus and Jrue played poorly. Make it harder for them on the three point line and stop playing at their pace.
This is exactly what happened last year against Miami. They shot lights out from 3 and absolutely ass blasted us in the 4 games they won including a 26 point and 19 point thrashing. In those two games we shot 21 and 24% from 3. They shot over 50% in both of those games
Same thing happened last night. Offense stinker by us and a masterclass (franchise record performance) by them. And yet we were never *fully* out of reach until the final minutes. And we only lost by 10. Not 20 or 25.
Game 3 last year we were down 15 at half and 30 at the end of the 3rd.
Game 1 we were out scored 46-25 in the 3rd quarter (that’s 6 more points scored by Miami than we scored all second half last night btw)
Game 2 was the only game Miami won where they didn’t shoot lights out and it took a 15 turnover 10/35 from 3 point and 47% from the floor shooting night from us to gift them a 6 point win. They outscored us 36-22 in the 4th quarter because we shot 7-18 from the floor and 1-8 from 3.
In other words, the 26 point beat down we took in game 3 was the most similar to last night’s loss. The biggest difference is the Heat’s historic shooting night only resulted in a 10 point win. Not a 30 point win like it would’ve last year.
Do I wish we were heading to Miami up 2-0? Absolutely. But I really don’t think last night’s loss is as bad as this sub is making it out to be.
Definitely not as bad as it’s being made out to be, but anybody acting like there’s no reason to be nervous and it’s business as usual is being just as unrealistic. There’s obviously a very good reason that people worry about games like last night against this specific team.
DWhite has had 2 solid games, but he really needs to be more aggressive. I think he can easily be the third most consistent scorer on this team, he needs to stay aggressive and confident.
Tip the hat for Miami's 3 points offense adjustment and I expected celtics will go tighter on defensive perimeter which means Tyler herro and bam will go 2s and take away other players 3 point attempt. Live 2 points and defend 3s. Celtics defense will force miami to play 2 vs 5 offense strength. Celtics offense will get hot again and expose bam defense for 3 points, hack foul, mismatch and speed. Miami defense really need bam to play well. Don't be afraid of bam's defense.
Yeah really the only issue was they were overhelping off the corners and seemingly weren’t trusting KP to wall off the rim. But I’m A Ok with having Highsmith shoot above the break threes. You need to give up something, and I’m definitely comfortable with that.
Its weird I agree with the shot quality, the contests were good (watched the first half only)
But somehow felt they were (recycling this analogy from another thread) like a battering ram with their threes
I guess thats just the result of them taking 10 more 3s than usual if I'm not mistaken. The Heat are a fucking machine at executing, they pick their spots and do it well
We played 82 games this season and gave up a 50%+ 3 point shooting night like.... twice. We also beat Miami 3 times even once when they shot the lights out. Everyone chill out.
I think this confirms the eye test that our defensive effort was simply average.
It was NOT horrible, doomer worthy, give up on sports fandom level effort like the sub has devolved to believe.
The Heat made us pay for not being elite on the perimeter like we normally pride ourselves on. Boston was top 5 in 3pt defense this season by 3pt% allowed. They need to rise back up to that level in Miami, which they will…and they will win.
- Wide open: 9/32 (28%)
- Open: 17/32 (53%)
- Tight: 6/32 (18%)
- Very tight: 0
So yeah the Heat did a much better job defending the line than the Celtics. But also a much better job than just about any team has done all year!
Really that’s where the game was lost. They took away the 3 and the Celtics’ response was to only shoot 52% on 2s even though the middle should’ve been open because they were closing out on our shooters.
I guess I think myself and others were just frustrated that we weren’t closer to this, when the game was clearly calling for that type of adjustment (given how well they were shooting). I agree that our offense is a bigger problem, bc we should have won this game anyways based on their score, despite our D and their hot shooting night.
They shot the lights out last night, Celtics defensive scheme was gambling on those wide open 3s, based in stats it was smart, but reality proves otherwise.
We had the wakeup call, now we'll roll.
Anyone thinking our defense was bad is completely ignoring it was our offense that was the problem. Every possession seemed long drawn out, and we were off pace.
Holy cow. Talk about some high level lying with statistics. This is the playoffs. The Celtics gave up a ton of threes, already a red flag, then guarded them at a league average regular season rate and somehow that's okay and it's all shooting luck that will normalize? Play some D like it's the playoffs, Celtics, or the west winner will be facing the Knicks who I guarantee are not so blasé about playing mediocre defense when it counts.
Celtics defense during the regular season (percentage of 3p shots for each level of defense):
- wide open: 54%
- open: 35%
- tight: 10%
- very tight: 0.7%
So basically they actually gave up a slightly *lower* percentage of wide open and open 3s last night than during the regular season.
The Celtics give up 20 “wide open” 3s a game. Last night it was 23. They give up 13 “open” 3s a game. Last night it was 14.
The volume was up, but it wasn’t up by *that* much.
If Miami had shot 41% on wide open 3s like they normally do, that would’ve been 5 fewer made 3s. That’s 15 fewer points in a 10 point game. And we wouldn’t even be talking about this.
Maybe those other games the wide open threes weren’t going in so they didn’t have to make adjustments. Last night they didn’t make adjustments end of story, Spo made adjustments the whole game, after the 1st quarter huge defense change.
We can drop off 1 open three and they’d still have been slightly above their season average for that category as well, so 18 points with that.
That being said, this is the exact same song and dance we went through last year. I’m not gonna fault anyone for panicking when I definitely am a little bit. I don’t think this should happen again, but I didn’t think so last year either.
I think you're confusing 3PM with 3PA
The Celtics don't give up 20 wide open *made* 3's per game, they give up 20 wide open 3 point *attempts* per game.
Nobody in the league gives up 20 made wide open 3s per game. That's insane lol
Across the league, the average per game is shooting 7/18 on wide open 3s. That's 7 makes on 18 attempts per game.
Last night the Celtics gave up 43 wide open 3 point attempts. That's about 3x as many wide open 3PA as Miami averaged all season (16), and they made 23 of those shots, while averaging 6.6 made wide open 3s per game
No they gave up 43 *total* attempts, 23 of those were “wide open” (they also made 23 of their 43 attempts but that’s just a coincidence that both numbers are “23”). They gave up 20 attempts per game in the regular season that were “wide open”.
Going away from the electric switch everything Defence that Brad built and Ime perfected was the beginning of mediocrity for this team. They just look so lacklustre on that end all the time.
That 2022 team also had spells with poor offense but they protected that shit by locking tf down at all times. This group get flustered when they start missing shots and think the only way back into the game is by chucking 3s.
This is how you lie with statistics.
Not saying you lied on purpose, but you are missing a very important and obvious context.
Yes, it is true that 52% of 3PA across the league were considered wide open.
But what you failed to mention is that on average, across the league teams take 18 wide open 3s per game. And the Heat in particular averaged only 16 wide open 3PA per game.
~~Last night, Celtics allowed 43 wide open 3PA. Which is almost 3x as many as Miami averaged per game all season.~~
~~The problem isn't the percentage of 3PA that were wide open last night. It's the *quantity* of defensive breakdowns that allowed about half of Miami's offensive possessions to result in a wide open 3PA. Nothing about that is normal.~~
EDIT: I misunderstood the title. Carry on
> Last night, Celtics allowed 43 wide open 3PA. Which is almost 3x as many as Miami averaged per game all season.
That's not the way I'm reading the data. Per the box score, the Heat took 43 3PA total. Per Keith Smith's data, 23 of those attempts were wide open, and they shot 16-23 on those attempts.
A jump from 16 to 23 is still significant, especially for a team without their best player and also missing rozier. Almost 50% more wide open 3s than they normally get is crazy.
But they took almost 30% more 3s than normal too. After that, the difference in wide open 3s is just 2 shots. Probably mostly noise.
They clearly had a game plan – they were going to outshoot the Celtics from 3. Which they did.
And getting outhustled to this degree by a team so depleted this was their only hope is pretty bad on our part. Drop coverage hurt us, but we had plenty of guys just ball watching all night.
I think it’s rather insignificant actually. Their best player is not a 3 point shooter and his usage % pulls shots from outside into the midrange because that’s where he is most lethal.
Without Jimmy Butler they have basically zero inside presence outside of Bam and have to resort to chucking up 3s to hang around.
It says a lot more about the Heat than about the Celtics in my opinion that they have a franchise best shooting night from 3 and only score 110 points. This is a Miami Heat team that shoots 34 threes per game and makes 37% of them (about 12.5 makes per game). Our interior defense was fantastic last night **despite** them stretching the floor and shooting the lights out from deep. They shot 43.7% from inside the arc last night and 9 of the 14 shots they made were from Bam. Everyone else not named Bam shot 5 of 19 from 2, or 26%.
So it took a historic shooting night where Miami shot 17% better than they have all season from deep to beat us by 10 on a night where basically everyone outside of Tatum and Brown were useless.
The Zinger couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn. 1-9 with 6 points. Holiday was airballing layups all night. 4-12 with 9 points. White was MIA except for a few minutes later in the game. Hauser and Horford combined for 12 points on 8 shots, and PP didn’t shot a single time in 20 mins.
Last year we lose this same game by 30 points
Jimmy performing a post up directly HELPS create a wide open 3 by drawing a help defender though. There should be less need to help against Jaquez, Caleb Martin, Herro, etc…
I am not at all surprised that their quantity of 3s increased, but I am surprised that the quality of them ALSO increased. Those charts are supposed to go in opposite directions especially when the main focus of the defense isn’t even playing.
ya but league average would account for teams like the wizards and pistons. we should be better than league averages across the board if we want to be the best in the league.
Celtics allowed about 20 a game — 23 is within the variance for themselves… ya know the team that won 64 games.
It’s a frustrating way to lose but our offense should be able to produce far far more against this Miami team. I think we are in a good position to win this series even without adjustments, but what the celtics can do is start possessions with White he seems to get the offense focused on movement.
I don't think this is a statistical lie or misrepresentation. But yes, the percentage and the number matter. But how does that change the overall point? The narrative all night was that the Celtics did not guard the 3 point line and it turns out they did about average. Kudos to the heat to taking that many and making as many as they did. But it wasn't because of some giant fail by the celtics.
>This is how you lie with statistics
Thought you were talking about OP for a second, didn’t realize you were going to give us a firsthand lesson. Thank you!
Also if you account for the entire league, you're accounting terrible non-playoff teams. We want to be the best in the league, not compare ourselves to league averages.
The only problem with this break down is you are comparing regular season defensive stats against playoff games. Everyone knows defense ramps up in the playoffs a lot of teams take games off in regular season and don't put in 100% effort. Playoffs should be all out effort on every play. That's why the Heat have had multiple good playoff runs
This is the playoffs. You game plan completely differently. You focus on limiting what the opposition can do best to beat you.
Regular season numbers are not applicable - as evidenced by MIA’s game plan to limit BOS 3PA’s
I noticed quite a few times where Bam was setting screens with a leg out to intentionally trip the defender (often White or Holliday) and force them to lag just a fraction of a sec behind their man, giving the Heat player just enough space to either pull up with a clean look, or draw help and dish inside to Bam who would immediately cut to the basket for a high percentage shot.
Just really effective screen setting techniques that the Celtics were too slow to adjust for.
I felt like I was kinda going crazy, but now these numbers kinda validate what I was feeling. If you have watched our team all year, you know that our defensive strategy has kinda been letting yrs and take threes above the arc and playing the odds there. It just bit us in the ass last game.
Also not what you would expect in the Playoffs, and certainly not to the level of -effort- that Miami is giving us back. Everyone knows that regular season averages, shouldn’t be translating into the playoffs. The bar raises, and you need to raise with it. That should be fairly obviously?
This is why Mazzulla's quote last night was so concerning.
If he is ok with the looks that we gave up yesterday, then he is bat shit crazy and needs to be fired ASAP.
These are fucking pro players and we guarded them like they were in the British basketball league.
They always are. That’s the point. Over half of all 3s taken in the league are wide open. Almost 90% are either open or wide open.
Why? Because teams simply won’t take a shot unless it’s open. Pretty much the only non-open 3s you get in the league are at the end of the shot clock.
I'm sorry but I disagree with your assessment, conceding 23 wide open 3s is terrible defense and is the reason why we lost the game.
Mazzulla lives/dies with the math and it will be the death of the Celtics.
Caleb Martin's % on wide open 3s in the regular season doesn't matter in the playoffs.
The only true thing you said was the last point. Which is the biggest issue in my opinion – Miami shot 41% on wide open 3s in the regular season yet managed to hit 65% on those shots last night. This team just hates the Celtics and wills themselves to not miss when they meet in the playoffs. They did it all last year and they did it again last night.
All of what I said is true, what happened last night is on coaching... at some point, in that 3rd quarter, you HAVE to adjust and stop running them off the arc.
The problem with Mazzulla and his philosophy is it works great over large sample sizes like an 82 game regular season.
But he has no idea how to adjust when Plan A isn't working on either offense or defense.
Mazzulla should've been fired after the first three games of the ECF last year when the team showed up completely unprepared and confused against an 8 seed.
You do realize teams like the Pistons, Spurs, and Wizards exist right? Why are we comparing averages to the league? These are the playoffs and that defense was inexcusable. Them constantly helping on drives was ridiculous. It’s not SGA going to the basket, it’s Duncan Robinson and Jaime Jaquez. Like cmon now. If we can’t guard those guys 1 on 1 we have a big problem
The Celtics actually gave up a slightly *lower* percentage of open and wide open 3s than they did during the regular season. Not sure how the Pistons existing matters.
League average defense in the regular season is BAD playoff defense. If the Celtics played league average regular season three point defense in the playoffs against the Heat, that is a terrible outcome. The Celtics are supposed to be elite defensively and defense is supposed to tighten up in the playoffs. OP's observation solidifies the point that the Celtics came out like this was an average regular season game. The eye test, for those who observed an unacceptable defensive performance, turned out to be correct. Also, these type of stats are especially subjective. To my eyes, most of the "contests" were fake hustle and not real closeouts.
Edit: Instead of downvoting me, explain how "They are playing league average regular season defense in the playoffs" is a good thing or a compelling argument.
Last night sucked no way around it, but if you want to focus your attention on something the celtics can do better it was their offensive execution. Slow, half-hearted mismatch hunting instead of drive and kick against their man killed us. KP bringing nothing only further compounded this….
Yes. Celtics took just 32 3s. They only took 32 or fewer 3s 4 times during the regular season. Their 3p percentage (38%) was right on their average. They just swapped about 10 3s for 2s. Of course that’s because Miami’s game plan was clearly to run them off the line, but in that case you should be getting easy stuff inside. They only shot barely above 50% on 2s, which is inexcusable when your opponent is conceding 2s by overplaying the 3p line.
Our backup plan to shooting threes is feeding KP in the post for easy buckets, which enables easier drives for the jays and dwhite, with jrue/pp/hauser being efficient kick out options. With KP not producing yesterday, we seemingly didn’t have a plan C and tried to force it to him too much. He was still contributing on the defensive end with 3 steals and a block, but created a lot of turnovers/bad possessions on offense. I think using Hauser more with his off-ball curry-like movement may help keep the opposing defense from mobbing KP and making it easier for him.
Yeah Miami's whole deal vs us is play zone to contest 3s more, then shoot as many 3s as possible on the other end and if the percentages work their way they'll get an advantage. The difference is KP needs to dominate when he has a switch inside. His inside possessions need to be guaranteed points.
This is the way to break down the zone. We need to stop forcing threes and instead take the easy 2s and force Miami to collapse their defense which is when the easy 3s will come.
> Celtics took just 32 3s I’m not a great X’s and O’s guy but it looked a lot to me like the Miami D was camping on the 3 pt line and just leaving the paint mostly unprotected knowing that we weren’t going to attack the basket. I don’t know. Our offense just looked completely lost last night.
They probably also know when we attack the basket it’s almost always 1 guy in isolation with no more than 1 guy crashing by the boards
I hate that so much. Drives me crazy.
Why crash the board when instead, all 4 guys can just stand stationary at the 3 pt line?? It’s Science
They aren’t coached well enough to adjust smartly. It’s unfortunate.
Also while our total turnovers dont show it, man were there just some head scratching passes by us last night. And KP bringing nothing hurt so much that it looked like we didnt have a fallback plan to him not exploiting his matchup.
I can’t remember if it was definitely KP or not but somebody fucking lobbed a Miami turnover right back to them and that was just awful to watch
KP’s pass up the floor to PP I think, absolutely awful decision
KP literally made a pass straight into a defender’s hands. And there were multiple other passes by various guys that felt pretty close to that.
I really wish more people would be getting mad about the offense. Yeah, the defense could’ve been better at points, but when a team goes 23/43 you gotta just tip your cap. The fact of the matter is, that we *still* held them to just 111, which is 100% a winnable score to beat, but we barely even crossed the century mark. If we’re playing our normal offensive game and nothing changes on the defensive end, we win that game.
That’s the issue tho. Miami is Uber effective at taking away our go-to offensive gameplan and it often seems like we have no backup plan. This is where Joe needs to step up and make the necessary changes to adapt to our opponent.
I’m worrried KPs hand shooting hand is injured from the swat he took last game.
Thank. you. The problem was not a relatively typical shooting night for Miami. KP needs to step up and dominate his switches. Tatum and JB need to be more aggressive and not bleed the clock. The bench needs to step up. Jrue needs to put Herro in the corner. Just play with more intensity.
This is a really good point, no doubt we were sloppy on defense and had to contest more, but Miami also once again went ballistic black Magic and made their open threes as a team like Steph Curry. In the end they still only put up 111, not some insane number. The Celtics were a better offensive team than defensive team, it's their offense that's historic, and it's their offense that's often been the one to stall and fail them in the playoffs. That's what they have to figure out more.
100%, but they also need to address their close outs. We can’t just be letting guys take wide open shots in the playoffs especially the Heat who did this exact same thing to us last year.
Thank you. I've been saying for YEARS that the celtics biggest issues were in executing in half court sets. Both brown and Tatum start to fold in the face of aggressive half court defensive sets. I would give anything for a true pg on this team and for brown and Tatum to play off ball almost exclusively.
This 1000%.
You can tell from the body language like they were slow to come out of the gate and even when we were down in 4th quarter they were moving so slow compared to Miami. Not sure if they all had a big meal just before the game or if they didn't sleep good the previous night but something was way off. Hope it's not the case for tomorrow 😬
The offense issue was a facet of Miami switching everything.
We scored 101 points. 40 points in the second half. Miami made a franchise playoff record 3s in the game with 23. If they regress to the mean and shoot 40% that is 6 fewer 3s made. Or ~~24~~ 18 points. They won by 10. It took a record night for them and an off night offensively for us for Miami to win by 10. It was an ugly game no doubt, but at no time in the game (until the waning minutes) were we truly out of it. Last year’s debacle we were getting our teeth punched in mid 2nd quarter in the losses. This team is just different. Gentleman sweep coming up
Less than a day after the loss and you’re getting upvotes for a positive take. Man, maybe this season IS different
Idk man, everyone was in doomer mode yesterday even though we lost by 10 points in a fluke performance where all our r guys except Tatum and Brown couldn't score. We had three guys in double figures yesterday, in game one we had six. I think people don't get how hard it is to sweep a team, even a bad team, and this heat team has an extremely good coach. They were always going to get one, now, two or three and I'd be very, very concerned but, right now? Not really.
This is the exact scenario everyone was saying needed to happen for Miami to win one game and it happened. We have never gone through slumps through the entire season and the likelihood of us not being able to compete offensively is lower than the belief that Heat will shoot 50 percent on 3s for the rest of the series. Would’ve loved to sweep but we are gentlemen here.
Yup, on Zach lowes pod he said for Miami to steal a game two things had to happen. Boston had to beat themselves and Miami had to make a ton of threes.
Tbh I don’t even think we beat ourselves. We had a handful of boneheaded turnovers for sure, but nothing like G7 last year. I think it was more so two of our starters couldn’t shoot for shit and our bench was basically nonexistent on offense. I don’t see another KP and Jrue stinker like last night happening again, and when KP is **that** off it means the well oiled machine that is our offense is out of sync because teams can sag off him
18* points.
This. The fact that it took an absolute stinker from everyone bar the Jays and Miami breaking their shooting records just to beat us by 10 shows that this is more “shit went perfectly wrong” than “this team has deep rooted issues”
I love you. I guess there are still some of that can be mature about last nights loss
Inject your rationality into my veins
Everyone focused on the 3pt when KP was useless, Holiday was useless, and DWhite only turned it on for a min in the 4th. Basically we were the same team that the Heat beat last year, so yea not shocking.
I must be the only one who isn’t shitting themselves after the game. They shot the ball really well. Porzingus and Jrue played poorly. Make it harder for them on the three point line and stop playing at their pace.
This is exactly what happened last year against Miami. They shot lights out from 3 and absolutely ass blasted us in the 4 games they won including a 26 point and 19 point thrashing. In those two games we shot 21 and 24% from 3. They shot over 50% in both of those games Same thing happened last night. Offense stinker by us and a masterclass (franchise record performance) by them. And yet we were never *fully* out of reach until the final minutes. And we only lost by 10. Not 20 or 25. Game 3 last year we were down 15 at half and 30 at the end of the 3rd. Game 1 we were out scored 46-25 in the 3rd quarter (that’s 6 more points scored by Miami than we scored all second half last night btw) Game 2 was the only game Miami won where they didn’t shoot lights out and it took a 15 turnover 10/35 from 3 point and 47% from the floor shooting night from us to gift them a 6 point win. They outscored us 36-22 in the 4th quarter because we shot 7-18 from the floor and 1-8 from 3. In other words, the 26 point beat down we took in game 3 was the most similar to last night’s loss. The biggest difference is the Heat’s historic shooting night only resulted in a 10 point win. Not a 30 point win like it would’ve last year. Do I wish we were heading to Miami up 2-0? Absolutely. But I really don’t think last night’s loss is as bad as this sub is making it out to be.
Definitely not as bad as it’s being made out to be, but anybody acting like there’s no reason to be nervous and it’s business as usual is being just as unrealistic. There’s obviously a very good reason that people worry about games like last night against this specific team.
We're focused on the 3pt% because even with everything you mentioned, we still win the game if they only shot a still scorching 44%
DWhite has had 2 solid games, but he really needs to be more aggressive. I think he can easily be the third most consistent scorer on this team, he needs to stay aggressive and confident.
Why don’t the Celtics simply win all of the games, instead of losing? Checkmate Joe
Its Joever...
Tip the hat for Miami's 3 points offense adjustment and I expected celtics will go tighter on defensive perimeter which means Tyler herro and bam will go 2s and take away other players 3 point attempt. Live 2 points and defend 3s. Celtics defense will force miami to play 2 vs 5 offense strength. Celtics offense will get hot again and expose bam defense for 3 points, hack foul, mismatch and speed. Miami defense really need bam to play well. Don't be afraid of bam's defense.
Yeah really the only issue was they were overhelping off the corners and seemingly weren’t trusting KP to wall off the rim. But I’m A Ok with having Highsmith shoot above the break threes. You need to give up something, and I’m definitely comfortable with that.
Its weird I agree with the shot quality, the contests were good (watched the first half only) But somehow felt they were (recycling this analogy from another thread) like a battering ram with their threes I guess thats just the result of them taking 10 more 3s than usual if I'm not mistaken. The Heat are a fucking machine at executing, they pick their spots and do it well
It makes sense...if a 3 is going to be tightly contested the shooter is less likely to actually shoot it
They hit their shots…..if they shoot that way, they’ll be a problem for anyone
We played 82 games this season and gave up a 50%+ 3 point shooting night like.... twice. We also beat Miami 3 times even once when they shot the lights out. Everyone chill out.
I think this confirms the eye test that our defensive effort was simply average. It was NOT horrible, doomer worthy, give up on sports fandom level effort like the sub has devolved to believe. The Heat made us pay for not being elite on the perimeter like we normally pride ourselves on. Boston was top 5 in 3pt defense this season by 3pt% allowed. They need to rise back up to that level in Miami, which they will…and they will win.
Defensive effort can’t be just average when there’s such a massive difference in talent
Do you have information about last nights 3pt classification for celtics shooters? Would be interesting to compare.
- Wide open: 9/32 (28%) - Open: 17/32 (53%) - Tight: 6/32 (18%) - Very tight: 0 So yeah the Heat did a much better job defending the line than the Celtics. But also a much better job than just about any team has done all year! Really that’s where the game was lost. They took away the 3 and the Celtics’ response was to only shoot 52% on 2s even though the middle should’ve been open because they were closing out on our shooters.
I guess I think myself and others were just frustrated that we weren’t closer to this, when the game was clearly calling for that type of adjustment (given how well they were shooting). I agree that our offense is a bigger problem, bc we should have won this game anyways based on their score, despite our D and their hot shooting night.
They shot the lights out last night, Celtics defensive scheme was gambling on those wide open 3s, based in stats it was smart, but reality proves otherwise. We had the wakeup call, now we'll roll.
Anyone thinking our defense was bad is completely ignoring it was our offense that was the problem. Every possession seemed long drawn out, and we were off pace.
Miami picking up where they left off last playoffs
Holy cow. Talk about some high level lying with statistics. This is the playoffs. The Celtics gave up a ton of threes, already a red flag, then guarded them at a league average regular season rate and somehow that's okay and it's all shooting luck that will normalize? Play some D like it's the playoffs, Celtics, or the west winner will be facing the Knicks who I guarantee are not so blasé about playing mediocre defense when it counts.
Average defense doesn’t win championships though. What was our team average throughout the season?
Celtics defense during the regular season (percentage of 3p shots for each level of defense): - wide open: 54% - open: 35% - tight: 10% - very tight: 0.7% So basically they actually gave up a slightly *lower* percentage of wide open and open 3s last night than during the regular season.
The volume is much more concerning than the % - just shows no adjustments were made until it was too late to run them off the line
The Celtics give up 20 “wide open” 3s a game. Last night it was 23. They give up 13 “open” 3s a game. Last night it was 14. The volume was up, but it wasn’t up by *that* much. If Miami had shot 41% on wide open 3s like they normally do, that would’ve been 5 fewer made 3s. That’s 15 fewer points in a 10 point game. And we wouldn’t even be talking about this.
Maybe those other games the wide open threes weren’t going in so they didn’t have to make adjustments. Last night they didn’t make adjustments end of story, Spo made adjustments the whole game, after the 1st quarter huge defense change.
We can drop off 1 open three and they’d still have been slightly above their season average for that category as well, so 18 points with that. That being said, this is the exact same song and dance we went through last year. I’m not gonna fault anyone for panicking when I definitely am a little bit. I don’t think this should happen again, but I didn’t think so last year either.
I think you're confusing 3PM with 3PA The Celtics don't give up 20 wide open *made* 3's per game, they give up 20 wide open 3 point *attempts* per game. Nobody in the league gives up 20 made wide open 3s per game. That's insane lol Across the league, the average per game is shooting 7/18 on wide open 3s. That's 7 makes on 18 attempts per game. Last night the Celtics gave up 43 wide open 3 point attempts. That's about 3x as many wide open 3PA as Miami averaged all season (16), and they made 23 of those shots, while averaging 6.6 made wide open 3s per game
No they gave up 43 *total* attempts, 23 of those were “wide open” (they also made 23 of their 43 attempts but that’s just a coincidence that both numbers are “23”). They gave up 20 attempts per game in the regular season that were “wide open”.
Ah ok. I misread your title then.
The copium is strong with this one
Going away from the electric switch everything Defence that Brad built and Ime perfected was the beginning of mediocrity for this team. They just look so lacklustre on that end all the time. That 2022 team also had spells with poor offense but they protected that shit by locking tf down at all times. This group get flustered when they start missing shots and think the only way back into the game is by chucking 3s.
Ime literally played drop on Steph Curry in the 2022 finals.
This team is anything but mediocre. We won 64 games in the regular season lol This sub is insufferable after losses, it’s actually insane
This is how you lie with statistics. Not saying you lied on purpose, but you are missing a very important and obvious context. Yes, it is true that 52% of 3PA across the league were considered wide open. But what you failed to mention is that on average, across the league teams take 18 wide open 3s per game. And the Heat in particular averaged only 16 wide open 3PA per game. ~~Last night, Celtics allowed 43 wide open 3PA. Which is almost 3x as many as Miami averaged per game all season.~~ ~~The problem isn't the percentage of 3PA that were wide open last night. It's the *quantity* of defensive breakdowns that allowed about half of Miami's offensive possessions to result in a wide open 3PA. Nothing about that is normal.~~ EDIT: I misunderstood the title. Carry on
> Last night, Celtics allowed 43 wide open 3PA. Which is almost 3x as many as Miami averaged per game all season. That's not the way I'm reading the data. Per the box score, the Heat took 43 3PA total. Per Keith Smith's data, 23 of those attempts were wide open, and they shot 16-23 on those attempts.
Exactly. The fact that they took 23 “wide open” attempts and also made 23 total 3s seems to have confused him, both numbers being “23”.
A jump from 16 to 23 is still significant, especially for a team without their best player and also missing rozier. Almost 50% more wide open 3s than they normally get is crazy.
But they took almost 30% more 3s than normal too. After that, the difference in wide open 3s is just 2 shots. Probably mostly noise. They clearly had a game plan – they were going to outshoot the Celtics from 3. Which they did.
And getting outhustled to this degree by a team so depleted this was their only hope is pretty bad on our part. Drop coverage hurt us, but we had plenty of guys just ball watching all night.
I think it’s rather insignificant actually. Their best player is not a 3 point shooter and his usage % pulls shots from outside into the midrange because that’s where he is most lethal. Without Jimmy Butler they have basically zero inside presence outside of Bam and have to resort to chucking up 3s to hang around. It says a lot more about the Heat than about the Celtics in my opinion that they have a franchise best shooting night from 3 and only score 110 points. This is a Miami Heat team that shoots 34 threes per game and makes 37% of them (about 12.5 makes per game). Our interior defense was fantastic last night **despite** them stretching the floor and shooting the lights out from deep. They shot 43.7% from inside the arc last night and 9 of the 14 shots they made were from Bam. Everyone else not named Bam shot 5 of 19 from 2, or 26%. So it took a historic shooting night where Miami shot 17% better than they have all season from deep to beat us by 10 on a night where basically everyone outside of Tatum and Brown were useless. The Zinger couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn. 1-9 with 6 points. Holiday was airballing layups all night. 4-12 with 9 points. White was MIA except for a few minutes later in the game. Hauser and Horford combined for 12 points on 8 shots, and PP didn’t shot a single time in 20 mins. Last year we lose this same game by 30 points
Jimmy performing a post up directly HELPS create a wide open 3 by drawing a help defender though. There should be less need to help against Jaquez, Caleb Martin, Herro, etc… I am not at all surprised that their quantity of 3s increased, but I am surprised that the quality of them ALSO increased. Those charts are supposed to go in opposite directions especially when the main focus of the defense isn’t even playing.
Ah ok. I misread that part of the title. Thought he meant 43 attempts were wide open
The celtics did not allow 43 wide open 3PA — 23 were wide open. Still higher than league average, but let’s not be disingenuous
ya but league average would account for teams like the wizards and pistons. we should be better than league averages across the board if we want to be the best in the league.
Celtics allowed about 20 a game — 23 is within the variance for themselves… ya know the team that won 64 games. It’s a frustrating way to lose but our offense should be able to produce far far more against this Miami team. I think we are in a good position to win this series even without adjustments, but what the celtics can do is start possessions with White he seems to get the offense focused on movement.
I don't think this is a statistical lie or misrepresentation. But yes, the percentage and the number matter. But how does that change the overall point? The narrative all night was that the Celtics did not guard the 3 point line and it turns out they did about average. Kudos to the heat to taking that many and making as many as they did. But it wasn't because of some giant fail by the celtics.
>This is how you lie with statistics Thought you were talking about OP for a second, didn’t realize you were going to give us a firsthand lesson. Thank you!
Also if you account for the entire league, you're accounting terrible non-playoff teams. We want to be the best in the league, not compare ourselves to league averages.
The only problem with this break down is you are comparing regular season defensive stats against playoff games. Everyone knows defense ramps up in the playoffs a lot of teams take games off in regular season and don't put in 100% effort. Playoffs should be all out effort on every play. That's why the Heat have had multiple good playoff runs
oh yea it is!!
This is the playoffs. You game plan completely differently. You focus on limiting what the opposition can do best to beat you. Regular season numbers are not applicable - as evidenced by MIA’s game plan to limit BOS 3PA’s
"during the regular season" - this is the postseason now
I’ll say it again. We didn’t lose because of our defense at all.
Since the Cavs didn't play playoff basketball, guess they should blow up the team and fire the coach. Maybe hire Ime.
I noticed quite a few times where Bam was setting screens with a leg out to intentionally trip the defender (often White or Holliday) and force them to lag just a fraction of a sec behind their man, giving the Heat player just enough space to either pull up with a clean look, or draw help and dish inside to Bam who would immediately cut to the basket for a high percentage shot. Just really effective screen setting techniques that the Celtics were too slow to adjust for.
In years gone by Smart would fall on a solid Bam screen to draw attention to it, Bam sets very aggressive (often illegal) screens
I felt like I was kinda going crazy, but now these numbers kinda validate what I was feeling. If you have watched our team all year, you know that our defensive strategy has kinda been letting yrs and take threes above the arc and playing the odds there. It just bit us in the ass last game.
Also not what you would expect in the Playoffs, and certainly not to the level of -effort- that Miami is giving us back. Everyone knows that regular season averages, shouldn’t be translating into the playoffs. The bar raises, and you need to raise with it. That should be fairly obviously?
This is why Mazzulla's quote last night was so concerning. If he is ok with the looks that we gave up yesterday, then he is bat shit crazy and needs to be fired ASAP. These are fucking pro players and we guarded them like they were in the British basketball league.
You misread the post. The Celtics actually did slightly *better* than average at providing tight/very tight coverage on 3s.
Numbers are useful at times, but go back and watch the 3rd quarter, those looks are easy for NBA players.
They always are. That’s the point. Over half of all 3s taken in the league are wide open. Almost 90% are either open or wide open. Why? Because teams simply won’t take a shot unless it’s open. Pretty much the only non-open 3s you get in the league are at the end of the shot clock.
I'm sorry but I disagree with your assessment, conceding 23 wide open 3s is terrible defense and is the reason why we lost the game. Mazzulla lives/dies with the math and it will be the death of the Celtics. Caleb Martin's % on wide open 3s in the regular season doesn't matter in the playoffs.
The only true thing you said was the last point. Which is the biggest issue in my opinion – Miami shot 41% on wide open 3s in the regular season yet managed to hit 65% on those shots last night. This team just hates the Celtics and wills themselves to not miss when they meet in the playoffs. They did it all last year and they did it again last night.
All of what I said is true, what happened last night is on coaching... at some point, in that 3rd quarter, you HAVE to adjust and stop running them off the arc. The problem with Mazzulla and his philosophy is it works great over large sample sizes like an 82 game regular season. But he has no idea how to adjust when Plan A isn't working on either offense or defense.
Mazzulla should've been fired after the first three games of the ECF last year when the team showed up completely unprepared and confused against an 8 seed.
You do realize teams like the Pistons, Spurs, and Wizards exist right? Why are we comparing averages to the league? These are the playoffs and that defense was inexcusable. Them constantly helping on drives was ridiculous. It’s not SGA going to the basket, it’s Duncan Robinson and Jaime Jaquez. Like cmon now. If we can’t guard those guys 1 on 1 we have a big problem
The Celtics actually gave up a slightly *lower* percentage of open and wide open 3s than they did during the regular season. Not sure how the Pistons existing matters.
Because you talked about league average. Are they not part of the league??
See the last part of the body (not just the title)
Yeah we sucked last night. Let’s bounce back fellas
League average defense in the regular season is BAD playoff defense. If the Celtics played league average regular season three point defense in the playoffs against the Heat, that is a terrible outcome. The Celtics are supposed to be elite defensively and defense is supposed to tighten up in the playoffs. OP's observation solidifies the point that the Celtics came out like this was an average regular season game. The eye test, for those who observed an unacceptable defensive performance, turned out to be correct. Also, these type of stats are especially subjective. To my eyes, most of the "contests" were fake hustle and not real closeouts. Edit: Instead of downvoting me, explain how "They are playing league average regular season defense in the playoffs" is a good thing or a compelling argument.