Halfway Marks - A Basic Stats Thread

zoyathedestroya · Post #1 » by **zoyathedestroya** » Thu Jan 18, 2024 11:27 am

We're at the halfway mark and Celtics are at 32-9. CleaningtheGlass (which removes garbage time possessions) has the Cs 1st in net rating (+10.2), 2nd in offensive rating (121.9), and 2nd in defensive rating (111.7).

Here are some other standout stats from 1st half of the season:

■ Celtics are making 16.2 three-pointers per game at 38.1%. Only two teams in NBA history have recorded 16+ 3PMs per game at 38%+ 3FG% for a full season -- 2021 Jazz and 2023 Warriors.

■ Celtics have a 10.0 point differential per game. Only 12 previous teams have maintained that for a full season. 8 of the 12 won the title.

■ Celtics have an SRS (margin of victory + strength of schedule) of 10.42. Only 5 previous teams have exceeded that mark. 4 of the 5 won the title.

■ In the 20 home games, the Celtics have a 15.65 point differential per game. Only 5 previous teams had higher. 4 of the 5 won the title.

■ The Celtics bench have a net rating of 4.0. Only 14 teams since 1996-97 had a better bench net rating, meaning the Cs current bench are on pace to be in the top 2% bench groups in the last 28 seasons. Only 5 of the previous 14 teams won the title.

■ Seven Celtics players (min 20 mpg) are shooting 37% or better from beyond the arc, most in the league.

■ Tatum is one of only five players (and only American) averaging 25+ ppg, 8+ rpg, and 4+ apg. Doncic, Embiid, Jokic, and Giannis are the other four.

■ By making 6 threes in the last game, Holiday became just the 10th player in NBA history to record 6,000+ career assists and 1,400+ career threes. The other nine -- Nash, Lowry, Kidd, LeBron, Kobe, Harden, CP3, Conley, Hardaway.

■ Only two players are averaging 15+ ppg on 50%+ 2FG%, 40%+ 3FG%, and 90%+ FT% splits -- Paul George and Derrick White.

■ Porzingis is 2nd in the NBA in Post-Up efficiency at 1.44 points per possession, good for 94.2 percentile.

■ Jaylen is 1st in the league in Transition possessions at 6.4 per game, scoring 1.22 points per possession, good for 66.3 percentile.

A Look-Ahead: The Celtics have the 2nd easiest remaining schedule, per Tankathon and positiveresidual.com. From February to April, 21 of the 33 Celtics opponents currently have a negative net rating.

KillahGhostface · Post #2 » by **KillahGhostface** » Thu Jan 18, 2024 11:55 am

Smart2Nesmith43 · Post #3 » by **Smart2Nesmith43** » Thu Jan 18, 2024 12:46 pm

TL;DR: The Celtics are a really good basketball team because they have one Brad Stevens in their front office. That's one more than the rest of the league combined.

Homerclease · Post #4 » by **Homerclease** » Thu Jan 18, 2024 12:54 pm

steefP2 · Post #5 » by **steefP2** » Thu Jan 18, 2024 2:24 pm

Remarkable has also been our consistency of excellence;

First 21 games; 16-5 with a +9.1 net rating. First in the league in win% and net rating during that stretch
Next 20 games; 16-4 with a +11.4 net rating. First in the league in win% and second in net rating during that stretch. (New orleans has a +12.6 net rating in their last 19 games).

First half of our season the Celtics were 7th in offense and 2nd in defense.
Second half they were 2nd in offense and 5th in defense.

Team is still getting better and with the easier schedule coming, all these stats should still getting better.

ConstableGeneva · Post #6 » by **ConstableGeneva** » Thu Jan 18, 2024 3:05 pm

Didn't mean to hijack the useless, meaningless thread. (See rightmost banner.)

KillahGhostface · Post #7 » by **KillahGhostface** » Thu Jan 18, 2024 4:24 pm

Two stats I’m paying close attention to. Jaylen is up to 37% on C&S threes, his best number in years, and by a lot.

Tatum is up to 34% on pull-up threes, 5% above last season, and slightly ahead of two seasons ago. I was pretty sure that the 10-15 game stretch where he was like 10-60 on them was a fluke lol, and it’s starting to seem like that’s the case.

If those two things hold true, good luck stopping the Celtics offense in the playoffs, I don’t care how good your defense is.

Hal14 · Post #8 » by **Hal14** » Thu Jan 18, 2024 4:51 pm

The only stat that worries me is our 3Pr. I posted about this earlier in the season, but if we go back to the 14-15 season and look at the teams that have won championships, the highest 3Pr in the reg season by a team that won the title was .456 and that was the 2022 Warriors.

If we look at teams that did not have Steph/Klay (because the Celtics do not have arguably the 2 greatest shooters to ever pick up a basketball to we probably shouldn't shoot as many 3's as them), it's the 2021 Bucks at .404.

If we look at playoffs 3Pr, the highest 3Pr for a team that won a recent title was .433 (2022 warriors) and if we remove the Splash brothers warriors teams it's .407 (2020 lakers but they had flukey 3 pt shooting in the bubble), the 2019 raptors were at .407..and the 2017 Cavs (didn't win title but made finals) at .408.

This tells me, that ideally we don't really want to be higher than a .410 3Pr. We definitely don't want to be higher .456 (the highest number in this post).

Yet the Celtics right now are no. 1 in the league with a .471 3Pr. We're playing with fire by having such a high 3Pr. It's just not a recipe that has proven to win titles - or even to make it to the NBA finals. Celtics made NBA finals in 2022 with a 3Pr of .425 in reg season and .448 in playoffs. But then last season we came up short of the NBA finals with a 3Pr of .480 in reg season and .452 in playoffs.

It's already been discussed on here quite a bit. But when you rely so heavily on the 3, you leave your chances of winning up to shooting luck/shooting variance. You could have a big advantage in talent, but if you take a million 3's, then it pretty much negates that talent advantage and makes the outcome of the game a tossup - if your shots fall, you win. If your shots don't fall, you lose (that's why middle school/high school/college teams, even sometimes in the NBA like Miami who are facing a team with more talent than them will often play zone defense). And deep into the playoffs when teams play *really* hard, the pressure is on, the games are closer, defenses tighten up and the difference between winning/losing is so small (just a bounce here, a shot there, a play here and that's it), you want to have your players, your talent be able to win you the game/series and not just leave it up to shooting luck or have it be a tossup, after working so hard all season.

There's tons of content online (clips on Twitter, YouTube vids, articles, etc.) where opposing teams/players say that the game plan against Boston is to clog the lane and dare us to shoot 3's. This strategy (and our over-reliance on 3's) is a big reason why we lost to Miami in the 2023 ECF, it's a reason why we lost to GS in 2022 NBA finals, it's a reason why the Hawks and Sixers series' in 2023 went more games than they should have and it's a big reason why we were such an inconsistent team during the 22-23 reg season - went 36-20 (.642 winning %) after we started the season off 21-5 (.807 winning %) mostly due to unsustainably hot shooting from 3. We had three different 3 game losing streaks during the 22-23 reg season after that hot shooting start to the season. Why? I'm willing to bet that in those 9 games (including back to back losses to an Orlando team that missed the play-in) we had cold shooting from 3 but took lots of 3's..just like we lost 3 games in a row to Miami in the ECF where we had cold shooting from 3 but took lots of 3's.

I like our chances to win it all. But if we come up short, I'm pretty sure it's going to be because of either injuries to our key players (nothing you can really do about that, it's pretty much out of your control..just try to add another decent bench player to help with depth) and/or the over-reliance on 3's.

zoyathedestroya · Post #9 » by **zoyathedestroya** » Thu Jan 18, 2024 5:04 pm

Celtics 3-pt attempt rate currently at .471 but that goes down to .427 whenever Kristaps is on the floor. As long as he's healthy, I imagine he will be a key cog in the postseason -- postups, zone-buster, passer from the elbow, floor spacer for drives, etc. Historically, Tatum also takes less threes and drives more in the postseason.

Last season, 3-pt attempt rate was at .480. That didn't significantly go down with either Horford (.463) or Timelord (.464) on the floor.

In any case, however many we take, we need to make them at a decent rate. As I mentioned before, regular season TS% could be a better indicator of playoff success (if such exists) than 3PAr, either way.

2023: 3rd in TS%
2022: 4th in TS%
2021: 5th in TS%
2020: 9th in TS%*
2019: 4th in TS%
2018: 1st in TS%
2017: 1st in TS%
2016: 4th in TS%
2015: 1st in TS%
2014: 3rd in TS%
2013: 1st in TS%
2012: 4th in TS%
2011: 4th in TS%
2010: 16th in TS%*
2009: 6th in TS%
2008: 5th in TS%

*outlier

Celtics currently 5th in TS%. There's also this:

Read on Twitter

I do wish we could get to the line more, which Tatum does more in the playoffs. KP will also help there.

zoyathedestroya · Post #10 » by **zoyathedestroya** » Thu Jan 18, 2024 5:28 pm

3-pt attempt rate of Celtics starters: .437
3-pt attempt rate of Celtics bench: .571

We'll be playing the bench less in the postseason.

KillahGhostface · Post #11 » by **KillahGhostface** » Thu Jan 18, 2024 5:41 pm

zoyathedestroya wrote:3-pt attempt rate of Celtics starters: .437
3-pt attempt rate of Celtics bench: .571

We'll be playing the bench less in the postseason.

I couldn’t be less concerned about our three rate if I tried. Tatum one of the most aggressively defended guys in the league, which leads to a ton of wide open threes, whether directly or indirectly. This Celtics roster one of the most uniquely built teams the league has ever seen, which is part of the reason that teams just don’t know how to defend them. So I don’t think past comparisons are all that useful, especially considering our two centers take a ton of threes.

Plus like you said, the team drives more in the playoffs, especially Tatum. They are a very diverse offense, even if it doesn’t show up in the volume.

Post #12 » by **165bows** » Thu Jan 18, 2024 6:23 pm

I haven’t even looked but I can tell you title winners three point attempt rate has skyrocketed over time so that would just be continuing the trend already in place.

Hal14 · Post #13 » by **Hal14** » Thu Jan 18, 2024 6:29 pm

165bows wrote:I haven’t even looked but I can tell you title winners three point attempt rate has skyrocketed over time so that would just be continuing the trend already in place.

Hal14 · Post #14 » by **Hal14** » Thu Jan 18, 2024 6:30 pm

KillahGhostface wrote:
zoyathedestroya wrote:3-pt attempt rate of Celtics starters: .437
3-pt attempt rate of Celtics bench: .571

We'll be playing the bench less in the postseason.

I couldn’t be less concerned about our three rate if I tried. Tatum one of the most aggressively defended guys in the league, which leads to a ton of wide open threes, whether directly or indirectly. This Celtics roster one of the most uniquely built teams the league has ever seen, which is part of the reason that teams just don’t know how to defend them. So I don’t think past comparisons are all that useful, especially considering our two centers take a ton of threes.

Plus like you said, the team drives more in the playoffs, especially Tatum. They are a very diverse offense, even if it doesn’t show up in the volume.

While I don't fully agree, I respect your opinion.

zoyathedestroya · Post #15 » by **zoyathedestroya** » Thu Jan 18, 2024 8:04 pm

Celtics 3FG% on wide-open threes in Ws: 42.9%
Celtics 3FG% on wide-open threes in Ls: 29.0%

The 13.9% disparity is largest in the league. Kings at 2nd at 11.3%. No one else at 10%+.

Cs taking a bit more wide-open threes in Ws (19.3) than Ls (18.0).

Tatumfor2 · Post #16 » by **Tatumfor2** » Thu Jan 18, 2024 8:12 pm

Hal14 wrote:
KillahGhostface wrote:
zoyathedestroya wrote:3-pt attempt rate of Celtics starters: .437
3-pt attempt rate of Celtics bench: .571

We'll be playing the bench less in the postseason.

I couldn’t be less concerned about our three rate if I tried. Tatum one of the most aggressively defended guys in the league, which leads to a ton of wide open threes, whether directly or indirectly. This Celtics roster one of the most uniquely built teams the league has ever seen, which is part of the reason that teams just don’t know how to defend them. So I don’t think past comparisons are all that useful, especially considering our two centers take a ton of threes.

Plus like you said, the team drives more in the playoffs, especially Tatum. They are a very diverse offense, even if it doesn’t show up in the volume.

While I don't fully agree, I respect your opinion.

Spoiler:

bfchs123 · Post #17 » by **bfchs123** » Thu Jan 18, 2024 8:23 pm

Not sure if there is someway to look this out without going through boxscores but would be curious of our record:

1) Games with the full starting 5
2) Games with and without KP

Feel like we are nearly unbeatable in 1) and close to it in 2)

zoyathedestroya · Post #18 » by **zoyathedestroya** » Thu Jan 18, 2024 8:34 pm

bfchs123 wrote:Not sure if there is someway to look this out without going through boxscores but would be curious of our record:

1) Games with the full starting 5
2) Games with and without KP

Feel like we are nearly unbeatable in 1) and close to it in 2)

1) 18-3
2) 23-7 w/ KP; 9-2 w/o

Post #19 » by **bisme37** » Thu Jan 18, 2024 9:59 pm

NBA Today (ESPN) took a short break from their Lakers coverage to give us an A+ midseason grade.

I'd look for the video to share but the whole thing lasted like 15 seconds haha. Basically Austin Rivers said we are good and that was it.

bfchs123 · Post #20 » by **bfchs123** » Thu Jan 18, 2024 10:26 pm

zoyathedestroya wrote:
bfchs123 wrote:Not sure if there is someway to look this out without going through boxscores but would be curious of our record:

1) Games with the full starting 5
2) Games with and without KP

Feel like we are nearly unbeatable in 1) and close to it in 2)

1) 18-3
2) 23-7 w/ KP; 9-2 w/o

Thanks!

1) is interesting when you break it down, the losses were:

1) 3pt loss on the road in Philly
2) 4pt loss on the road in OKC
3) That BS back-to-back loss on the road in MIL

Have to stay healthy but this starting 5 is absolutely lethal