Some Stats that Don’t Fit the Narrative — Maybe the Celtics Don’t Stink as Bad as we Think (or maybe they do)
Hello everyone, I’m about to make my second post in as many days, which is unique for me as I’m usually good for one a year. I still remember my one of my first posts on this sub being a hard-hitting investigative piece about how tall Amir Johnson! actually is. Maybe it’s the warm weather, maybe it’s that my year plus of exclusively working from home is done in a few months so I want to get my slack-off money’s worth, alas. Today, I’m going to lightly suggest that perhaps some of our favorite narratives aren’t as true as we think with some stats. Looking forward to the comments about how stupid I am.
Our Offense Sucks
I think there are really two parts of this narrative. First, we iso too much, and second, don’t pass enough. The first one is true, and the second is half true. Mind you this is all NBA.com playtype data, so this isn’t perfect. We iso 7th most often in the league. That’s pretty often. We are also 16th in passes per game, so middle of the road. Passing doesn’t necessarily equal good offense, and we really prove that rule because while we are 16th in total passes we are 28th!!! in potential assists. In other words, we pass quite a bit, it just doesn’t threaten the defense (part of this is by design, Brad’s offense regularly stars with two, three, or four handoffs/pitch backs at the top of the key that count as passes but in no way will ever lead to a shot).
Even though both of those things are true, our offense isn’t actually that bad!!!! We are a totally respectable 12th in offensive rating. Those 6 teams that iso more frequently than us? Nets, Portland, LAL, Houston (lol), LAC, and the Bucks, basically every contender bar the Jazz and Sixers. Jazz are middle of the pack and Sixers are mid 20s, but they iso, it just gets called a post up per NBA.com, they are 1st with a bullet in frequency of post ups. Those 3 teams that have fewer potential assists than us? Portland and NYK, two good to solid teams. Two teams in the top 5 of potential assists? Toronto and Indy. There are many ways to generate points at an effective level in the NBA, and we are doing it fairly well, at least well enough to be better than .500, which leads me to my next point.
Everyone is dealing with Covid
This, as a general statement is true. Everyone is dealing with Covid. However, in the NBA, it doesn’t get much more dire than the Celtics. According to Sportrac data, we have missed 137 player games to injury or Covid. 137!!! And we lead the league in missed player days due to covid/health and safety.
Some of the contenders: Nets 105 (not counting Dinwiddie, 149 with);
DAL 77;
DEN 95 (not counting Greg Whittington’s (Who?) 37);
LAC 89 (20 of which are Jay Scrubb 2nd round rookie);
LAL 106 (25 of which is Kostas Antekoumoupo, 27 Jared Dudley);
MIL 61;
PHX 77;
Utah 68 (includes 21 Udoka Azuibuke; 14 Elijah Hughes);
Philly 94.
Other than the Nets who are insanely loaded so it doesn’t matter, most of the teams clearly better than us have not been hit nearly as hard by the injury/COVID bug, Denver was getting crushed by it, but have gotten healthy and went on a run. They struggled early in the year when guys were in and out (sounds vaguely familiar). Utah and Milwaukee have comically low numbers given the environment.
Let’s look at our fellow Eastern Conference under achievers:
Miami — 179!!! You poor bastards, we feel your pain.
Toronto — 96 (38 of which are pat McCaw lol).
Conclusion: It’s really hard to play well when you get crushed by injuries and COVID and the Raptors may just suck ass which makes me very happy.
Our Defense Sucks
Frantically checks NBA.com for some stats ….. Sorry I got nothing, our defense sucks right now. I guess the only numbers I’d point to are the 137 games missed, the 4 practices this year, and the fact we have 9 guys on rookie contracts. We are hurt, young, and can’t practice, but yeah, the defense blows right now. For the record we are 21st in Defensive rating, which is actually an improvement. Last time I checked a few weeks ago, we were 22nd, ON OUR WAY TO FIRST BABY!!
