Asking whether or not the Celtics shoot too many threes is like asking if Taylor Swift puts out too many albums. Wouldn’t you with all those hits?
Boston tied their franchise record of twenty-two triples in a playoff game on Sunday. It was a welcome reminder of just how dangerous this team has been all year after nearly three weeks of non-competitive basketball.
Hitting nearly 45% of their threes probably won’t happen again…or maybe it will. The Celtics did it nineteen times in the regular season, losing just one of those games in that odd no-call/bad call game in Indiana.
However, realistically, one-third seems to be the magic number. When Boston shot better than 33% from behind the arc, they were 55-5 in the regular season. In other words, in every fourth game or so, they had a bad shooting night and were 9-13. In a seven-game series, that ratio is encouraging. A dud might happen twice in a round, but even then, the Celtics have a near 50/50 chance of winning.
With just how much of a winning formula it’s been all year long, head coach Joe Mazzulla stuck to his guns: the Celtics essentially went with their regular season rotation going eight deep and to a man, shot a ton of threes. Everybody who saw the parquet floor in the postseason opener hit at least two threes — except for Jayson Tatum who hit just one of his eight attempts.
Like it or not, Boston is built to play Mazzullaball, one through six, one through eight, one through fifteen.
“Everything is connected,” Mazzulla said after Al Horford, Payton Pritchard, and Sam Hauser made 8 of 16 threes off the bench. “Jayson’s poise and ability to make plays came because of our spacing and because of Sam and Payton’s shot-making.
We handled their zone a little bit differently and they were forced into some 2-on-1s and we made the right play. It’s a credit to our passing. It’s a credit to their playmaking. That just shows you how each guy has an impact on the next guy.”
Miami was always going use their junk zone defenses in an attempt to frustrate Boston. In last year’s Eastern Conference Finals, the Celtics “others” had a miserable series: Jaylen Brown (7of-43, 16.3%), Marcus Smart (15-of-42, 35.7%) Malcolm Brogdon (3-of-18, 16.7%), Al Horford (8-of-29, 27.6%). Now, after Wyc Grousbeck’s urging in the offseason and Brad Stevens’ masterful maneuvering to not only go out and get Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday, but trust the development of Pritchard and Hauser, a historic offensive run over 82 games is proof of concept that shooting a lot of threes is a good idea, or as Mazzulla would say, “I like math.”
