The Boston Celtics were the most prolific team in the league during the 2024-25 NBA regular season when it comes to launching shots from behind the arc, as they were first overall with an average of 47.4 3-point attempts per game.

While it hasn't been the same story in the 2025 NBA Playoffs thus far, as Boston is ninth among teams that made the playoffs with 36.0 per contest through Monday,the Celtics went absolutely trigger-happy from long distance in Game 1 of their second-round meeting with the New York Knicks.

One can argue that the Celtics lived and died with the outside shot in the series opener versus Jalen Brunson and the Knicks. The Celtics hoisted a total of 60 3-point attempts in Game 1 of the New York series, but only made 15 of them. The 45 missed 3-pointers by Boston were the most ever in a game in NBA Playoffs history, as the Celtics squandered a 20-point lead in a 108-105 overtime loss to New York.

The Celtics have been heavily criticized by fans online for their seemingly overreliance on the 3-point shot in Game 1. Tatum's shot selection also came across as questionable to some people who watched the contest.

The former Duke Blue Devils had several moments where he settled for a 3-point shot instead of potentially trying to exploit favorable matchups by attacking the basket off the dribble when he had a Knicks big man or a smaller man like Brunson as a primary defender.

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Tatum finished the game with 23 points, but he also needed 23 shots from the field to get there. He was 7-for-23 from the floor and 4-for-15 from long range. For what it's worth, he was the only Boston starter who had a negative plus-minus in Game 1 with a minus-5 through 44 minutes of floor duty.

Tatum also shared his thoughts on Boston's 3-point shot volume.

“We feel like we had some good looks,” Tatum told the media in the postgame press conference (h/t Noa Dalzell of Celtics on CLNS). “Obviously in hindsight, we could probably drive the ball a little bit more.”

Despite missing a ton of 3-point shots, the Celtics still lost by just three points in overtime. That can be taken by Boston as a good sign going forward in the series, with Game 2 coming up on Wednesday.