The Philly Model — Why the Celtics Are on Pace for Fifty Wins
If you know anything about me, you know I absolutely hate saying the P-word. I’ll happily say the f-word, the s-word, and sometimes even the c-word (Cleveland). But the P-word is off limits. So I must be pretty fucking serious about my point if I’m willing to actually type out the word Philly in the title. I feel gross already.
So here it is: teams with elite defenses win a shitload of basketball games, even if their offense isn’t particularly good. In the last 15 games, the Boston Celtics have the 2nd ranked defense in the NBA (per NBA.com Defensive Rating). Offense… has been a struggle (23rd), regardless, the Cs are 10–5 in that stretch. Getting into rock fights and winning ugly is a tried and true method to win games in the NBA. Does it sometimes make me question why I don’t watch more hockey? Absolutely, but dammit, it’s effective. Let’s take a look at the last three years of teams with elite defenses and not so elite offenses (didn’t include any team in the top 10 of offense) and their records, and then talk about where the Cs fit into this mess.
The History We Are Doomed To Repeat
Editor’s Note: Asterisk denotes not a full 82 game season. Also, I included one team with at top 10 offense, the ’20 Bucks. I’ll hand out refunds after you’re done reading.
Pretty good. No true title contenders other than the 2020 Lakers who literally won the title. That said, not a single team below .500. Hell, not a single team even flirting with .500. The worst record on the board is last year’s Knicks, who were on a 47 win pace. Those Knicks are probably the most comparable iteration of the “last 15 game Celtics” given that they sport nearly identical ORTG ranks. Not a bad team, but short of 50 wins and they lost in 5 games in round 1. Probably not what we should be striving for (suck it Knicks, we lost in 5 too and didn’t have like half our team and played the fully healthy Nets).
What Does This Mean for the Celtics and Why Am I Bringing Up Philly?
So, my unadulterated click bait title said the Cs are on pace for 50 wins, but the team most clearly comparable would have come up pretty solidly shy of that last year (again, and I can’t stress this enough, suck it Knicks). I’m banking on two things being true about this team. First, the defense since the Bulls debacle is real. If that’s not the case, throw this whole argument out and go ahead and humiliate me like my wife does (by request). Second, the offense can’t be this fucking bad, right? Remember last year’s offensive shit show? Remember how fucking terrible it all looked and how frustrating it all was? The Celtics finished 10th in ORTG last year!!! TENTH!!! At some point Tatum will get it going and things will even out on that end, I mean it has to… I hope?
If the offense evens out and Tatum figures it out, I could see our ORTG jump from the abysmal 106.1 of the last 15 games to something like 109 or 110. That’s essentially the equivalent of the Cs making one more three and a free throw or layup a game, pretty marginal improvement. If guys were shooting their career averages from 3 and from the field, it would more than make up that difference. In the last 15 games the 13th ranked offense scored 110.1 points per 100. The 14th ranked offense scored 109.
Ok. If the defense is real and the offense isn’t amazing, but it’s somewhere in the 12–15 mix this year, where does that put us? Head on back up to the chart and take a look at last year’s Philly team. A team that won the conference and was widely considered one of the main contenders for the title until the world finally realized why Celtics fans constantly laughed at Ben Simmons (member when he had 1 point, I do). It’s worth noting that the ’20 Raptors, who lost to the Hayward-less Celtics in the playoffs, also finished 2nd and 13th and were on their way to a mid/high 50s win-total in an 82-game season. If the Celtics can just grind out enough points to match that lumbering, goofy Philly team from last year, they are going to win a fuck-ton of games this season.
Maybe they aren’t a championship contender this year, but this team needs to show improvement to itself, the fanbase, and other players that might interested in joining up next offseason after last year’s disaster. So long as the offense just gets a little better, the Cs are on pace to do that and possibly much more. I might also add that the Cs have lost several overtime games this season. Literally adding 1 extra point to their total would flip those to wins and have a dramatic effect on their record. And hell, even if they don’t make it to Philly’s level, just a measly 2 PP/100poss puts you around 16th in ORTG (over the last 15). Go ahead and look at OKC and the Pacers from ’19. Pretty fucking close to 50 wins. As I always say, shoot for the Sixers and land amongst the Thunder.
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