We’ve finally reached NBA Playoffs Eve. It’s one of my favorite holidays. Congratulations to all who celebrate. In preparation for what promises to be a thrilling, upsetting, and unpredictable postseason, here are 13 questions worth asking about Round 1. Some are hyper-specific and granular, while others zoom out to inspect a larger theme. All will eventually be answered, one way or another. Buckle up!
1. Will crunch-time offense be the Boston Celtics’ Achilles’ heel?
Last season, Boston’s offensive rating in the clutch was 110.9, good for 11th best. Not terrible but enough to yield a 24-13 record. Then in the playoffs, the Celtics went 5-6 in games that included actual crunch time. A modest strength melted into total disaster. Their offense was careless. Their defense collapsed. It’s a paradox, yes, but when the pressure ramped up, the Celtics embodied an anxious leisure. Almost everyone’s confidence seemed to exit stage left.
Things were different this season. Boston’s offensive rating in the clutch was a sizzling 120.5, the team’s net rating tripled from the year before, and it went 21-12 in those situations. (With Derrick White on the court, their offensive rating spiked to an outrageous 128.3 points per 100 possessions.) When the Celtics did struggle, some of their close losses weren’t necessarily because they did anything wrong. Go back and watch, and you’ll see well-choreographed sets fueled by selfless decisions that yielded quality shots. Open looks don’t always fall. But their process wasn’t always steady, and everything they did can’t be labeled a sign of growth.
In the final five minutes of games where the scoring margin was five or fewer points, the Celtics finished dead last in pace. Speed isn’t a prerequisite for efficiency, but that mark was palpable in the static possessions Boston suffered through whenever it came up short this season. The offense was more predictable than methodical. Instead of behaving with the same decisiveness that carried the Celtics through the game’s first 3.5 quarters, a curious tepidity seeped into their bloodstream.
This wasn’t in every game, for sure. They did in fact prevail in some pressure-packed environments. But if you zoom in a bit and look at how they performed with just three minutes left and a scoring margin of three points or fewer, the paint starts to smudge. Boston was 13-12 in these games, with a net rating of just plus-0.8 and a putrid offensive rating of 104.9.
Yes, it’s harder to create space against an opponent who’s upped their intensity and is locked in to get every stop. But Boston still lags behind other teams aspiring to win it all. The Mavericks, Nuggets, Thunder, and Sixers all generated over 120 points per 100 possessions. The Bucks, Lakers, and Clippers weren’t far behind.
Granted, we’re now analyzing an exceptionally small sample size that doesn’t necessarily portend doom, but the further we go down this rabbit hole, the worse it looks. Cut the clock down to one minute with a three-point margin, and the only teams that were less efficient than Boston were the Jazz, Wizards, Pelicans, and Pistons. Yuck.
According to PBP Stats, 53 players had a usage rate of at least 20 percent in high-leverage or very high-leverage situations this season. The only one who had a lower true shooting percentage than Jaylen Brown was Cole Anthony. Jayson Tatum ranked 35th.
That said, there were plenty of times when those two were awesome in big spots and led Boston to victory, particularly when they went fast and leveraged all the space around them:
Tatum and Brown know how to play with urgency. They know how to slice through myriad defensive coverages. They can orchestrate and hunt. Isolation basketball down the stretch probably won’t win Boston a title. Even when these two get the matchup they want,…
This article was originally published by a www.theringer.com . Read the Original article here. .