State of the East: Boston Celtics

 30+ games into the season and the Cavs are looking good, how does their competition in the East look?


Boston Celtics:  Verdict- Overrated.  Done.  

Sorry, default mode for Boston though its true so far this season.  They went on a tear in November going 14-2 and outscoring their opposition by 11 points a game and the nut slobbing commenced.  So far in December they are 4-6 and post game pressers are talking about 'putting in more effort' and 'coming together as a team' and all that nonsense.  The major difference is that they were burning the nets up from 3 in November and have gone cold in December.  Per game averages

November:  17.3/42 = 41.2% 

December:  13.5/42.5 = 31.7%

Difference = 3.8 3s per game, 14.44 ppg

Points per game

November: 123.8

December:  109.5

Difference 14.3 ppg

Is this literally the only thing going on?  No, but its the dominant difference between them crushing opponents and looking like a sub 0.500 team.  

The Celtics do not have the shooting (based on the career numbers of their shooters) to be the #1 team in the league in % (which they were through the end of November) and a top team in attempts (currently #2 per game) without dumping their defense.  

It is possible that their defensive prowess returns with Robert Williams back in the rotation (number 9 now, so not bad currently by any stretch) and try to be a better version of last years team but that would be much less of an advantage going into the Eastern Conference playoffs this year than it was last season.  Last year the Celtics were #2 defensively with only a single other team from the East making the top 6 (Miami at #5) and no other Eastern playoff team making the top 9 (Cavaliers and Knicks at #7 and #9 missed the playoffs).  Currently the top 3 defensive teams are all in the East (1 Cavs, 2 76ers, 3 Bucks) along with 5 of the top 8 and none of them are Boston who is at 9.  

Lineup wise they are 2nd in the league in net rating and SRS but they do not have a higher rated 8-10 man rotation which is more predictive of playoff success (their likely playoff rotation is currently +6.3 against a +6.8 CTG net rating).  

Boston was a finals team last year, but their run through the East included a pair of 7 game series against teams missing crucial players.  They were not dominant and the East (currently) looks much tougher than last season.  


Comments

  1. bitmattJanuary 7, 2025 at 6:49 PM

    I am genuinely interested in this blogger’s current views on Caris Levert, Donovan Mitchell and the state of the Cavs in general. A lot has happened!

    ReplyDelete

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