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There's been much wailing and worry in the Celtic universe about rebounding. A casual look at the numbers shows Boston is second to last in this area. Greenophiles are reportedly gnawing fingernails at an alarming rate.

I'm here to say, this is all very misleading. The actual situation is not so dire.


Here's a closer look:

Yes, in rebound AVERAGE per game the Celtics are 29th in the league at what appears to be a putrid 38.3 per game. The only team worse is the Golden State Warriors at 37.0.

The Celtics are terrible huh? Well actually, no.

Rebound average per game is a useless stat. It's a number without any context. If you want to know how good or bad a team is on the boards you look at rebound DIFFERENTIAL; that is, the difference in rebounding between a team and their opponents.


Back to the Celtics: They're below average in rebounding differential at -0.8 per game. That's not good; but it's not wail-and-moan bad either. (Take away the -20 rebounds from the win in San Antonio and the Celtics are dead even.)

Why is there such a difference between rebounding average and differential? It's because the Celtics' rebounding pie is smaller. In a Boston game there are simply less rebounds to be had. This is due to the Celtics shooting the highest percentage in the league and being close to the top in turnover differential.

The Celtics are mediocre rebounders, not horrible ones, and as Garnett continues to improve so will the team.


(A further example: the Lakers by far lead the league in rebounding at 44.9 per game. But in differential they're actually 11th at a mere +1.2 rebounds better than their opponents.
Despite being 10th in rebound average, Memphis leads in differential with a whopping +4.7.)

...Oh yeah, one last thing: Golden State really does suck at retrieving the ball from the glass. In rebound differential they're an astonishing negative 9.4!

So save the fretting for the Warriors. The Celtics are fine.

We were in the top 3 in differential the last couple years if memory serves with +3 or 4. So this year we've definitely slid back. I think it's a real concern because giving up extra shots to good offensive teams will just kill us. We've improved in the turnover category, hopefully that will even it out.

Edit: The title made me think you were going to rip on Pierce.

Gant wrote:There's been much wailing and worry in the Celtic universe about rebounding. A casual look at the numbers shows Boston is second to last in this area. Greenophiles are reportedly gnawing fingernails at an alarming rate.

I'm here to say, this is all very misleading. The actual situation is not so dire.


Here's a closer look:

Yes, in rebound AVERAGE per game the Celtics are 29th in the league at what appears to be a putrid 38.3 per game. The only team worse is the Golden State Warriors at 37.0.

The Celtics are terrible huh? Well actually, no.

Rebound average per game is a useless stat. It's a number without any context. If you want to know how good or bad a team is on the boards you look at rebound DIFFERENTIAL; that is, the difference in rebounding between a team and their opponents.


Back to the Celtics: They're below average in rebounding differential at -0.8 per game. That's not good; but it's not wail-and-moan bad either. (Take away the -20 rebounds from the win in San Antonio and the Celtics are dead even.)

Why is there such a difference between rebounding average and differential? It's because the Celtics' rebounding pie is smaller. In a Boston game there are simply less rebounds to be had. This is due to the Celtics shooting the highest percentage in the league and being close to the top in turnover differential.

The Celtics are mediocre rebounders, not horrible ones, and as Garnett continues to improve so will the team.


(A further example: the Lakers by far lead the league in rebounding at 44.9 per game. But in differential they're actually 11th at a mere +1.2 rebounds better than their opponents.
Despite being 10th in rebound average, Memphis leads in differential with a whopping +4.7.)

...Oh yeah, one last thing: Golden State really does suck at retrieving the ball from the glass. In rebound differential they're an astonishing negative 9.4!

So save the fretting for the Warriors. The Celtics are fine.

How dare you cloud this with facts......

Again......great post..........

Also keep in mind where KG's, and Rasheed's points and even perks points come from. KG on the top of the key, Sheed; from the top of the key outwards (except for the randolph session), and Perk though close, fades away from the basket on his shot. So that's our top three rebounders putting themselves away from the basket in their own way on an offensive possession. The buckets go in, so that helps.

the difference in terms of percentage of likelihood that the other team would get the ball is only a few points higher. i'm happy to live with the efficient production these guys have putting up every night. seemingly, they've been better of late anyway. with Davis coming back, the team may improve even more.

The sky is definitely not falling but rebounding has just not been good. For comparison our differential in the championship year was +3.1 rpg. Big difference from -.08 rpg.

Gotta pick it up. I'm looking forward to the Atlanta game in 2 weeks -- last time they out-rebounded us 47-29. Embarrassing. I think we'll do better this time around.

This statistic isn't helpful because we shoot a much better percentage than our opponents. That means more rebounding opportunities exist on our defensive end, and rebounding is easier for the defensive team. This is the only reason this statistic makes us look average.

What you have to look at to get an accurate picture is our offensive rebounding numbers vs. our opponents' defensive rebounding numbers and our defensive rebounding numbers vs our opponents' offensive rebounding numbers.

According to 82games we grab about 26% of the boards on offense and about 69% of the boards on our defensive end. I believe 70% is average for the defensive end, so we're slightly below average on the D-boards and considerably below average on the O-boards.

To add a little to that:

The Celtics Defensive Rebound Rate is 13th in the league (tied).

The Celtics Offensive Rebound Rate is 28th (also tied).

So the defensive boards are middling, but the offensive boards are what's bringing them below average.

Maybe they never expect to miss so they don't hit the glass on offense? Ha ha.

I'm sure they'll improve as the season goes on. It's not a huge factor so far as it's more than cancelled out by forcing turnovers and shooting so well.

Yes, I do agree that the situation isn't that bad, but when you watch the games you can definitely see that this team is being outrebounded. More often than not this is because the opposing team tips the ball out of one of their hands.

It simply comes down to boxing out, you can see it every night. Some guys just aren't putting a body on rebounders resulting in the tips.

20-4.