The most efficient offense in NBA history helped Boston raise Banner 18 last season, in large part to their three-point shooting. They followed up that feat by making the most threes by a team this year: 1,457 3FGM, shattering their 2024 total of 1,351.
In Game 1 of their second round series of the Knicks, they broke another record, missing 45 triples in the NBA Playoffs. Leave it to Magic Johnson to twist the knife a little more.
That might seem like a dubious distinction for a team looking to win back-to-back championships, but three-point shooting has been their M.O. under head coach Joe Mazzulla since he took over three years ago. Asked about his team’s shot selection in the second half — particularly in third quarter when the Celtics shot nineteen of their twenty shots from behind the arc — Mazzulla stood behind Mazzulla Ball.
“For the most part, yeah. Obviously, over the course of the game, you always can find 5 to 10 shots that you want to be better at, but I thought throughout the night, for the most part, we fought for good looks,” Mazzulla said.
At the final buzzer, the Celtics shot a paltry 15-of-60 from 3. Including Game 4 against the Magic, it was only the 14th time that Boston has shot under 30% and they’re 5-9 in those games.
However, so many of them were good-to-great looks. In the regular season, the Celtics were second in the league in generating catch-and-shoot threes and sixth in making them (39.1%). On Monday night, a whopping 25 of their attempts were uncontested catch-and-shoot opportunities and Boston made just 7 of them.
Of course, having one of those games in the playoffs shrinks your margin of error, especially after losing home court advantage. The Celtics don’t seem too deterred by their gameplan.
“A lot of shots, we felt me make those all the time. A lot of wide open threes off of offensive rebounds, things like that or kicks to the corner, just driving and kicking,” Jrue Holiday said. “We had a lot of good shots which we wish would have fell, but at the end of the end, we gotta keep on shooting and playing our game, trying to get to the basket as much as we can, but at the same time, mixing those threes, too.”
Jaylen Brown did acknowledge that the Knicks “dared” the Celtics to shoot and they obliged. “I don’t think we did a good job of … seeing the game … we were just firing it up,” Brown said.
After a series against the Magic where Orlando took away Boston’s biggest strength, the Celtics had to find different ways to score. That might be where Mazzulla & Co. might look to adjust their approach.
To Brown’s point and Mazzulla’s measured criticism, there were possessions that could have gone differently. With Karl Anthony-Towns in foul trouble, this 27-footer could have been a drive.
Maybe another drive here from Derrick White gets one of the Jays a corner look instead.
And with a chance to win the game in regulation, Tatum opted to go with his patented stepback three over Mitchell Robinson. To that point, he was 0-for-6 in the fourth quarter and had missed all five of his threes.
“Obviously in hindsight, we could drive the ball a bit more because we missed a lot of shots tonight, but that’s the bounce sometimes. It’s a make-or-miss league,” Tatum said.
After this loss, Boston will look at some tape, but for the most part, the best thing to do with Game 1’s outcome is not to consider it in hindsight, but completely in the rearview.
