I’m writing this in light of the recent loss to the Wizards plus the fact that for some reason a lot of people in this sub got scared of us matching against the [Heat](https://www.reddit.com/r/bostonceltics/comments/126869z/bucks_win_heat_lose_nets_win_for_those_of_you/) in the first round, which is baffling specially given the reasoning (i.e: We haven’t played well since the AS break). Since the break we have been a bit below [0.600 in winning percentage which is good for the 9th](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/nba-team-records-since-february-17th). You know the all-mighty and scary Heat? They’re the 10th worst winning percentage since the break, at 0.444. I’ll give you that Spoelstra is scary, he outplayed us last year after all. All I intend to do is to show a few data points I gathered so far during discussions recently here, I’d be willing to add anything that becomes more concerning if it is pointed to me.
So lets dive slightly on the (free-to-use) data for this season. Lets break it into a few segments shall we?
| Segment of the season | OffRtg | DefRtg | NetRtg | AST% | AST/TO | AST Ratio | OREB% | DREB% | REB% | TOV% | eFG% | TS% |
| ——————————————————————————————————– | —— | —— | —— | —- | —— | ——— | —– | —– | —- | —- | —- | —- |
| |
| [Whole season](https://www.nba.com/stats/teams/advanced?DateFrom=&dir=A&sort=DEF_RATING) | 4th | 4th | 1st | 6th | 5th | 5th | 27th | 1st | 10th | 6th | 4th | 4th |
| [From Nov 1st](https://www.nba.com/stats/teams/advanced?DateFrom=11/01/2022&dir=A&sort=OFF_RATING) | 4th | 4th | 1st | 5th | 3rd | 5th | 27th | 1st | 9th | 7th | 6th | 7th |
| [From Dec 1st](https://www.nba.com/stats/teams/advanced?DateFrom=12%2F01%2F2022&dir=A&sort=OFF_RATING) | 16th | 2nd | 4th | 5th | 8th | 7th | 26th | 1st | 7th | 9th | 13th | 14th |
| [From Jan 1st](https://www.nba.com/stats/teams/advanced?DateFrom=01%2F01%2F2023&dir=A&sort=OFF_RATING) | 10th | 5th | 4th | 4th | 7th | 6th | 25th | 1st | 7th | 9th | 8th | 10th |
| [From Feb 1st](https://www.nba.com/stats/teams/advanced?DateFrom=02%2F01%2F2023&dir=A&sort=OFF_RATING) | 8th | 4th | 3rd | 8th | 8th | 7th | 27th | 1st | 14th | 11th | 4th | 7th |
| [From March 1st](https://www.nba.com/stats/teams/advanced?DateFrom=03%2F01%2F2023&dir=A&sort=OFF_RATING) | 10th | 2nd | 2nd | 10th | 9th | 10th | 25th | 6th | 13th | 9th | 11th | 13th |
What does that mean? Well, we did play badly from March it seems like and in December. This also means that we’ve been consistently good. Yes we slipped in offense throughout the season but we’ve consistently been on the upper end of most of the offensive-related metrics available. It is also worth pointing that our half-court offense is pretty damn good ranking [3rd for the season](https://cleaningtheglass.com/stats/league/context#tab-offense_halfcourt_putbacks).
How we did it though? My biggest point of why the Celtics didn’t fill the shoes of the projected wins (yet, we can still finish above 55.5 wins) is health. Effectively, Mazzulla didn’t have the same team as last year. This is not to say that Mazzulla is by any chance safe from criticisms, he just didn’t have the same personnel. He did have an improvement of Brogdon and White (for the full season) compared to last year, but he didn’t have the same Smart, Grant or Rob which we can all agree by eye test. But lets go to numbers a bit, specially for Rob and Smart.
Last year, Marcus played 2296 minutes, per Basketball Reference. This year, Smart played 1871 minutes so far. If he plays his average (32.3mpg) to finish the year, he will have a total of 2064 minutes played. Thats 232 minutes less, or 10.1% less minutes than last year. Given also he didn’t play up to last year as well. This isn’t worrisome I guess, since we had a bunch of minutes from White. I’d argue we didn’t have our DPOY, so defense should (and did in absolute numbers) slip away.
Now, the biggest part Rob. Rob will be the majority of this but I’ll include Al Horford for completeness. Last year Rob played 1804 minutes, Al played 2005 minutes. Total of 3809 minutes. We then had a bunch of Centers last year that go from: Enes Freedom, Daniel Theis, Luke Kornet, Bruno Fernando (only considering 50 minutes or more played). The total minutes we played the bench centers was 947.
This year we played just from Luke Kornet, 719 minutes. That’s because Rob is set to play 1000 less minutes than last year. If we add Kornet, Blake, Vonleh we have 1383 minutes. This comes for an incredible thing, we have been a great defense for the year without a DPOY and a DPOY-candidate player playing as many minutes or even been themselves.
Does that mean that Rob and Smart are hurting the team? No, defense effectively improved with Rob back. But Smart is the one that has been highlighted a bit as a problem. For instance this data point, [which seems to say White >>> Smart](https://twitter.com/itsbrianbarrett/status/1641137733249662976?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1641137733249662976%7Ctwgr%5Ecb3ced7d847809016938421944abf7b703808fbd%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.redditmedia.com%2Fmediaembed%2F1264zho%3Fresponsive%3Dtrueis_nightmode%3Dtrue):
* In 81 minutes Smart w/Tatum/Jaylen/Al/Rob is a -27
* in 69 (nice) minutes White w/Tatum/Jaylen/Al/Rob is a +64
Now, the problem is the three man lineup of [Smart, Brown and Tatum](https://www.reddit.com/r/bostonceltics/comments/1264zho/comment/je8basb/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
* Tatum/Jaylen/Smart on …White off, 508 minutes, 113.5 offensive rating 119.0 defensive rating -5.5 net rating
* Tatum/Jaylen/White on… Smart off, 312 minutes, 118.4 offensive rating 105.6 defensive rating +12.8 net rating
But our four man lineups all have Smart, Jays, White, Al in any variation. [Using 400 minutes as the cutoff](https://www.nba.com/stats/lineups/advanced?CF=MIN*G*400&GroupQuantity=4&dir=D&slug=advanced&sort=NET_RATING) 4 out of 15 best 4-man lineups. If we look only our team [only](https://www.nba.com/stats/lineups/advanced?CF=MIN*G*400&GroupQuantity=4&TeamID=1610612738&dir=D&slug=advanced&sort=NET_RATING) it goes like this:
* A. Horford – M. Smart – J. Brown – D. White, OFRTG 120.7, DEFRTG 107.4, NETRTG 13.4
* A. Horford – J. Brown – J. Tatum – D. White, OFRTG 119.8, DEFRTG 107.4, NETRTG 12.4
* M. Smart – J. Brown – J. Tatum – D. White, OFRTG 123.3, DEFRTG 111.5, NETRTG 11.8
* A. Horford – M. Smart – J. Tatum – D. White, OFRTG 124.8, DEFRTG 113.5, NETRTG 11.3
* A. Horford – M. Smart – J. Brown – J. Tatum, OFRTG 116.5, DEFRTG 114.7, NETRTG 1.8
Why is this important though? We have 4 out of the 15 best. The Bucks appear in 16th for the first time.
Now, I do know a lot of people will point we had a better roster than last year. We got 2151 minutes of DWhite, 1622 of Brogdon, 1159 minutes of Hauser and 573 minutes of Payton. Which is a total of 5505 minutes. Compared to last year we got 1433 Minutes of Schroeder, 1087 of JRich, 1001 of Payton, 728 of Romeo, 713 of White, 158 Hauser and 112 of Jabari (lol), which is 5806 minutes. Yes, our team was better but it was different. It was smaller and had more shooting which directly translated into us taking 14% more threes this year. So what that means exactly? I’ll be honest, not much. Its pretty hard to correlate the stats with winning. There is no formula for that.
But, more often than not top offenses and defenses for the season [win championships](https://www.sbnation.com/nba/2022/12/29/23529584/offense-and-defense-ratings-nba-finals-boston-celtics-golden-state-warriors). We did that. More often than not teams who reach [40 wins before 20 losses are “true” contenders](https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/s5h9d0/oc_is_phil_jacksons_elite_teams_reach_40_wins/). We did that. Does the last few games also correlate to winning it all? Not really. Lets check the last 30 games of the season from the recent champs and our recent 30 games stretch:
* [2017-2018 Warriors](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask?q=2017-2018+warrior+record+for+the+last+30+games+of+the+regular+season) 17-13
* [2018-2019 Raptors](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask?q=2018-2019+raptors+record+for+the+last+30+games+of+the+regular+season) 21-9 (lol)
* [2019-2020 Lakers](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask?q=2019-2020+lakers+record+for+the+last+30+games+of+the+regular+season) 19-11
* [2020-2021 Bucks](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask?q=2020-2021+bucks+record+for+the+last+30+games+of+the+regular+season) 18-12
* [2021-2022 Warriors](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask?q=2021-2022+warriors+record+for+the+last+30+games+of+the+regular+season) 14-16 (steph was injured)
* [2022-2023 Celtics](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask?q=2022-2023+celtics+record+for+the+last+30+games+of+the+regular+season) 18-12
Does being the 1st seed in the NBA or in the EC translate in a winning it all? Not so much recently. The last 1st seed (nba-wise) to win it all was the 2017 Warriors. The last three EC 1st seed to win it all are 2016 Cavs, 2013 Heat and 2008 Celtics.
Does this analysis means anything but calming a bit the nerves? No, not really. A lot can happen until playoffs and during the playoffs. This was meant to look and say: yes, we had problems, we have problems, we will have problems. It doesn’t mean we already lost the championship nor that we have already won. It means we got a shot, a pretty good one if we look into the past, whether all of it or even the most recent past.
To add (this is an edit) there were a lot of people who called out Mazzulla for not being confrontational like Ime was. Well, this is an extract of the interview Rob gave to Forsberg:
“Joe is confrontational, man. He helped us build that urge to be able to listen to one another. He addresses all elephants in the room as soon as he enters the room. We need that. You know what I’m saying? We need a coach that will lead like that. It’s easy to follow someone like that…Joe will snap. He will snap on you for sure,” Williams said.
TLDR: I showed a bit of the data I gathered through discussions here just to say that we have a decent shot at the championship, but we ain’t perfect
by Theis159
17 Comments
These are the type of posts that need upvotes and needs to be read, not the posts that say fire Mazulla
Thank you for this statistics!
Just so everyone is aware we’re second in the league second in the East… Not second last 🤔
bro this is way too long for those guys to read, but I loved it.
Silly u/Theis159. You know these casuals can’t read.
Tldr
Good shit Theis
If the doomers could read they would be real upset with you
Advanced stats is great at showing us which teams are likely to make it to the Finals and yeah, we’re still in the running. Fire Mazzulla talk is dumb and shortsighted
This team should have 6 more wins if it wasn’t for Joe and as I keep saying nobody unless they’re trying to push an agenda is using advanced stats (example Derrick White). The only reason the record is this good is because he has the best team in the whole nba…
Excellent work. Unfortunately, all the illiterate bandwagoners from r/Patriots won’t understand what you’re saying.
Your title makes no sense. This is a lot of nothing
A matchup we don’t want to see are the cavs and maybe Knicks. For whatever reason, we couldn’t get either of them. A criticism I have of Joe, is call a damn timeout lol. I get letting them figure it out. That is fine but stop the bleeding
We’re not a bad team. We get rattled easily and get in our own heads, but we aren’t bad. We never have comebacks, have had a decent stretch of late with some excellent games, albeit against some very bad defenses. Our offense can really struggle when players get lazy – and we definitely get lazy. Nobody respects a Celtic lead and when a team goes on a run it rarely feels like we’ll hit back.
Honestly, we can (and should) win it all this season. Health is a major factor but that’s no excuse, it’s a factor for everyone. We just play like assholes far too frequently. There’s a reason that so many people are frustrated this season with how we play and it’s a matter of potential vs effort and consistency.
I just hope that if we match up against Miami they punch us in the mouth. You don’t make it through by being soft.
great use of statistics to show a picture of what’s going on…Rob and Smart have been a bit bad this year compared to last, and that is a bit of a problem, maybe this offseason we need to get a backup centre or serious competition, this guy might never be fit or durable to play 70 plus games… or even 30 minutes a night.
great job, OP. as a basketball nerd, this is the shit I love reading.. awesome content!
If anyone needs a reminder that advanced stats can sometimes tell a story that would otherwise fly under the radar, consider the Celtics last year.
[Before the All-Star break](https://www.nba.com/stats/teams/traditional?PerMode=Per100Possessions&Season=2021-22&SeasonSegment=Pre%20All-Star&dir=A&sort=W_PCT) last season, the Celtics were 12th in the league standings. By net rating, however, they were 4th in the league, behind the Suns, Jazz, and Warriors. That turned out to be a much better predictor of their performance than their record, especially considering many of those pre-All-Star minutes were with Schroder instead of White. Post-All-Star, we were an insane +12.7 per 100 possessions, won tons of games, and you know the rest.
This year, we’re number 1 in the league, at +6.0 per 100 possessions. That’s not the dominance the second half of last year displayed, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to hope that a rested, healthy team can be the best team in the playoffs, and it’s hard as a fan to expect any more than that.
The point is that games are fluky: if you rearrange a couple made threes here and there you can easily give any team 5 extra wins or losses. If the refs had called one more foul in each of the Cleveland OT losses, does that suddenly make our team significantly better? Our lineups score points and prevent opponents from doing the same. Clutch scoring can be a mirage: the Bulls and Suns were incredible in the clutch last year, and the Suns had the least clutch performance I can remember while the Bulls have been a shell of themselves.
doomers cant read
but but bill simmon told me celtics bad heat scary joe dumb smart awful and local radio said jaylen gone