Former NBA MVP and current commentator Charles Barkley famously said “jump shooting teams don’t win championships” during the rise of the Golden State Warriors dynasty. The Warriors somewhat proved him wrong, winning three times in five Finals appearances predominantly doing damage from the perimeter. That phenomenon has spread across the NBA over the last decade.
In 2013-14, the Rockets led the league with 26.6 three-point attempts per game and only four teams took more than 25 triples per game. In 2023-24, no team attempted fewer than 30 triples per game. Half of the league’s 30 teams took more than 35 three-point shots per game. And nobody took more threes than the Boston Celtics.
This hasn’t always been Boston’s style of play. The Celtics attempted 36.4 triples per game in the 2020-21 season and have seen that number climb as they flesh out their roster around Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. Boston’s attempts from the perimeter went up to 37.1 in 2021-22, 42.6 last season and 42.5 this season. The efficiency has been good but not particularly great. The Celtics shot 37.4% in 2020-21, 37.1% in 2021-22, 37.7% last season and 38.8% this season. And yet, the attempts from deep continue.
The Celtics made the Finals with a good chunk of this core in 2022, chucking 36.6 shots from the perimeter per game during the postseason. The percentages didn’t impress, with Boston shooting below 38% in each of the first two rounds before shooting just below 35% in the seven-game conference finals series against the Heat. Ironically, the Celtics shot 40.8% in their loss to the Warriors in the Finals. So jump shooting teams can and do win titles.
However, there is a flip side to all this, which the Celtics experienced last playoffs. Boston continued to chuck from deep and got through the first two rounds without much trouble. The Celtics connected on 40.6% of their triples in the first round and 38.6% of their triples in the second round to set up a rematch with Miami. Even though Boston only hit on 30.3% of its three-point attempts, it still was one game away from becoming the first team to complete a comeback after being down 3-0. The Celtics took 38.1 threes per game in that series, nearly nine more than the Heat.
Trading for Jrue Holiday (42.9 3p%) and Kristaps Porzingis (37.5 3p%) last summer didn’t change Boston’s strategy. The Celtics took 42.5 threes per game, which was the most in the NBA. They connected on just under 39% of them, which was actually second in the league. When it came to overall statistics though, no one touched Boston. The team was 64-18 and posted a net rating of 11.7, more than four points per 100 possessions better than the next team. Despite missing Porzingis for most of the playoffs, the Celtics have posted a 10.8 net rating through 14 games. That’s almost seven points per 100 possessions better than the Dallas Mavericks, Boston’s opponent in the Finals.
So does all this hoisting from beyond the arc matter?
According to defensive tracking data from NBA.com, Boston took around six threes per game through the first two rounds in what could be considered “very tight” or “tight” coverage. The Celtics hit on 21.9% of these shots in the first round and 27.2% in the second round, which seems right. After all, you don’t shoot as well when there’s tight defense. Boston did very well on what were classified as “open” threes, hitting 40.2% of their 20.4 attempts per game in the first round and 42.5% of their 16 attempts per game in the second round. They only hit on 29.7% of their 18.7 open threes per game in conference finals, but somehow still swept the Pacers in that series. So is there anything that will undo Boston?
For starters, Dallas will be the best team Boston has faced these playoffs. The Celtics were fortunate to get the Heat without Jimmy Butler, the Cavaliers without Jarrett Allen and Donovan Mitchell missing two games, and the Pacers with Tyrese Haliburton missing two games. Boston’s net rating shrunk substantially from 17 against Miami to 8.5 against Cleveland to 6.3 against Indiana, just 0.1 points ahead of Dallas’ 6.2 net rating against Minnesota. And then there’s always the chance the threes don’t fall, which leads to bad habits for the Celtics.
Boston ranked 21st in assist percentage during the regular season, and that percentage has gone down a bit in the playoffs. The Celtics had under 25 assists per game in the first two rounds of the playoffs, hitting 26 assists per game in the sweep over Indiana. This team is good enough to play large stretches of the game in isolation, with Tatum and Brown largely doing their own thing offensively while the other four players saunter around the perimeter looking to get into an open space. Even if the threes don’t fall, Boston largely stays in this system and it leads to bad offense. The Celtics will attack the basket and kick out to a shooter, who will often chuck a contested three. Sometimes, Tatum or Brown will do the deed themselves in an iso situation. That might work against shorthanded second-tier Eastern Conference teams but it’s eventually going to get figured out. The Mavericks, who carried the league’s best defensive rating and net rating over most of the last month of the regular season, are the sort of outfit who can exploit these tendencies.
Porzingis returning for the Finals will help, and Boston’s defense remains one of the best in the game. The Celtics have set themselves up well to add the franchise’s 18th banner, and even their seemingly compulsive desire to shoot triples at an insanely high volume might not get in their way.