The Boston Celtics have made it clear all season long that their only goal for the 2023-24 campaign is to hang Banner 18 at TD Garden. As we prepare to enter the homestretch of the season, so far, everything has gone according to plan for Boston. They are the top team in the league with a 43-12 record, and they have generally been the dominant team that they were expected to be entering the year.
It's not hard to see why Boston has been so successful. Their top six players in Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Kristaps Porzingis, Derrick White, Jrue Holiday, and Al Horford, are arguably the best six-man rotation in the league. Behind them, they have enough depth and versatility that makes it incredibly tough for their opponents to ever get a leg up on them.
No team in the NBA is perfect, though, and the Celtics are certainly not a team without their flaws. While those flaws may be smaller than their competitors, it only takes a few small flaws to add up and destroy a season. As the team prepares to return from the All-Star break, let's take a look at the one fatal flaw that Boston needs to remedy if they intend on going on and winning the 2024 NBA Finals.
Celtics fatal flaw: Shooting too many threes
The Celtics game plan, despite all their talent, is pretty simple; play swarming defense, and create enough open looks from three that they eventually pound their opponent into submission. It's typically worked pretty well, given the fact that they have the best record in the league, but when it doesn't work, Boston has shown a concerning propensity for not being able to adapt.
The C's are taking 42.7 three-point shots per game this season, which is easily the most in the league. Again, this isn't a massive concern considering how they are hitting 38 percent of their threes as a team, which is good for fifth in the NBA. The problem is that three-point shooting is very volatile, and when things don't go their way, the Celtics have struggled to adapt.
Ever since Joe Mazzulla took over as the team's head coach, Boston has lived and died by the three. When it works, there's nothing worth complaining about, but when it doesn't work, the Celtics end up playing some very ugly basketball. While there's really nothing wrong with this gameplan on a nightly basis, there are times when other strategies are needed to beat their opposition.
Brad Stevens went out and traded for Porzingis and Holiday this past offseason in an effort to solve this problem. In the Eastern Conference Finals against the Miami Heat last year, the Celtics rally fell short because they went ice cold from behind the arc in Games 6 & 7. They managed to survive Game 6 thanks to an incredible buzzer-beater tip-in from White, but once Tatum rolled his ankle 30 seconds into Game 7, their season was effectively over.
Adding Porzingis gave Boston another big man in addition to Horford who can stretch the floor and force teams to guard him at the perimeter, but he's also an imposing interior scorer who can hunt mismatches in the post and hit a bevy of tough midrange jumpers over smaller defenders. Holiday is also a mismatch against smaller guards, as he can back them down into the paint to get easy looks at the rim.
Combine this with the skilled scoring of Tatum and Brown, and Boston is putting up massive point totals on a nightly basis. But when they lose, it's often because they forget they have these options at their disposal. There are going to be nights when the threes don't fall, so when that happens, the C's need to pivot and begin attacking the rim instead.
Realistically speaking, this isn't a massive issue for the rest of the regular season, but it will become particularly pressing once the postseason rolls around. Over the course of a seven-game series, anything can happen, and if the Celtics get complacent when it comes to taking threes on nights where they aren't falling, that could ultimately sink this team.
The good news is that the solution is easy; when the threes aren't falling, attack the rim. Even if you don't generate open looks in the paint, chances are defenses will sink in, whuch opens shots up at the perimeter. But the solution to missing threes cannot be to take more threes and hope they go in, or else the Celtics will be on upset watch in the postseason.
When you've been as good as Boston has been this season, it's tough to find any massive flaws that could destroy them. But it's clear that falling in love with three-ball could be detrimental in the playoffs, which would be a shame considering how talented this team is. This isn't an issue that will affect the C's every night, but when it does flare it, it has the potential to be deadly.
Follow Us
Subscribe