The Boston Celtics are the defending NBA champions but they haven’t had a great season so far. Sure they’re still second in the East, but they’ve lost 9 games, and don’t have the same aura of inevitability they had last year. This has led NBA analyst Tim Legler to think they’re more vulnerable now than they have been at any point in the past year-and-a-half.
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Legler spoke about the Celtics and what he believes is their biggest weakness on his All NBA podcast with co-host Adam Mares on Monday. The former sharpshooter pointed out that although the Celtics are still great, and on certain nights they can just overwhelm their opponents with outside shooting and defense, they have one potentially fatal flaw: an overreliance on the three-point shot. He said,
“I’ve seen too many games here, man, over the last couple of weeks in particular. They do not adjust at all and go to another way to beat you. And they have so much personnel to beat you in another way.”
Legler pointed to Sunday’s loss to the Indiana Pacers, Boston’s third in four games and fourth in six, to illustrate the current issues with Joe Mazzulla’s team. In one sequence, the Celtics watched a two-point deficit balloon to nine in a matter of moments as Sam Hauser and Jayson Tatum took contested, off-balance threes, while the defense gave up easy baskets on the other end.
Legler pointed out that the Celtics have the ability to beat teams in a variety of ways, but they choose not to do it. Tatum and Jaylen Brown are All-Stars who can beat their defenders one-on-one, but Legler believes Boston’s analytics department has shifted them away from playing winning basketball in order to seek threes at all costs.
What’s worse is that because the Celtics shoot so many threes, opposing defenses are so spread out that there are wide-open driving lanes present, yet the Celtics refuse to take advantage.
To repeat as NBA champs, the Boston Celtics need to be able to do more than just shoot threes
Legler once led the league in three-point shooting percentage, so he knows what he’s talking about, and Boston’s recent skid proves it. Against the Pacers, the Celtics were 16-54 from three. In a loss to an undermanned Magic team last week, Boston gave up a 15-point lead thanks in part to an 8-33 showing from deep. In a home loss to an under-.500 Bulls team a few days earlier, Boston kept bombing away in vain, and they ended up shooting 14-56 from three and 24-41 from two by the time the game was over.
The Boston Celtics are 15th in the NBA in three-point shooting percentage, yet they attempt over 50 threes per game, by far the most in the league. The next closest team doesn’t even shoot 45. As Legler said, “Some nights you watch them and you go OK, who’s playing for second in this league?”
Threes are inherently high-variance though, which raises the possibility that the Celtics could get bounced in the playoffs if they go cold and refuse to adjust.
The Celtics were 37-4 at home a year ago, yet are only 12-6 at the TD Garden this year. They’re only a half-game ahead of the Knicks for the 2-seed and five full games behind the Cavs for first in the East. Last year no Eastern team finished within 13 games of them.
In order to regain their championship form, Legler is right that the Celtics need to become a more well-rounded team.
