Post by Admin on Nov 19, 2017 16:53:55 GMT -5
Brad Stevens: Boston Celtics making the wrong basketball play too frequently
By Jay King
AP Photo/Mary Schwalm
The Boston Celtics haven't lost in a full month, but head coach Brad Stevens wants his team to maximize more possessions.
After beating the Golden State Warriors on Thursday night, Stevens said his team can play "pretty ugly" basketball. To the coach's point, the Celtics currently rank 23rd in offensive rating.
"We haven't played well enough to consider this win streak to be valid in my opinion," Stevens told reporters Saturday, as shared by ESPN's Chris Forsberg. "We've figured out ways to win games. We gotta play a lot better."
Later, Stevens clarified the comments to Celtics radio announcer Sean Grande.
"Valid may be the wrong word," Stevens said. "When you win, you win. But the hardest part is to make sure you're focused...every possession. We've still got 10 to 15 to 20 possessions where we don't make the right basketball play. We're going to have to cut that number in half."
It's no secret the Celtics are winning because of their defense, which held the Warriors to their lowest offensive rating ever with Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant both in the lineup. Giving up just 95.4 points per 100 possessions, the Celtics are one-tenth of a point off pace for the best defensive rating since the NBA changed the hand-check rule in 2004. The gap between Boston and the Eastern Conference's second-best defense (Miami), seven points per 100 possessions, is the same as the gap between Miami and the 29th-ranked Phoenix Suns.
So, yeah, the Celtics defense has dominated. But they're winning in spite of their offense.
"We've got to be better, and we know that," Stevens said. "We can't get so caught up in the results of all these games and ride that emotion. We've been fortunate to win a lot of the games in this streak, including Thursday night (against the Warriors). If we dig ourselves a 17-point hole every other game, it's not going to be as much fun as we've had recently."
A couple notable stats:
1. According to NBA.com, the Celtics have averaged 37.3 fewer passes per game this season than they did last season. They have dropped from second in that category to 18th. I don't want to make a sweeping statement about what that means, mostly because it might just be that Boston has a very different roster, with very different players, and a brand new style. But I thought I would point it out.
2. The Celtics rank 27th in effective field goal percentage, and I do know what that means: they have not put the ball in the basket very well. The three teams behind them in that stat (the Dallas Mavericks, Chicago Bulls and Sacramento Kings) have combined for nine wins. That's five fewer than Boston has won during its current streak.
Despite what Stevens initially said, the streak is valid. Nobody has been able to beat the Celtics since Oct. 18. But there's a lot of room for offensive improvement, as Stevens knows.
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