The Boston Celtics wing trio of shooting guard Jaylen Brown, forward Gordon Hayward and swingman Jayson Tatum couldn’t miss against the Chicago Bulls on Saturday.
The trio combined for 71 points, shooting 66.7 % and going 7-of-13 from deep against Chicago in a road game win, their third in a row.
Lingering pain in the foot of the leg fractured at the start of Hayward’s Celtics tenure has led to some trepidation regarding whether the discomfort might affect his overall game, but seems to have dissipated with a seeming return to the highly-efficient form he had to start the season recently.
Gordon Hayward has been excellent over the team’s current three-game win streak, averaging 21 points and 7 rebounds over the last three games while shooting 43.8 % from three and 56.5 % overall.
All-Star hopeful Jayson Tatum has been the “least” efficient of the trio over that stretch with a rough shooting night against the Atlanta Hawks and more generally this season.
Hitting just 2-of-16 in that contest, but his 12-of-15 night against the Bulls has the Missouri native averaging 21.7 points and 7.7 rebounds on 46.2 % shooting from beyond the arc and 49 % overall.
NBA Player of the Week Brown has been the most efficient of the three recently, though in fairness, a sinus infection earlier this week “robbed” him of one of the games in the team’s winning streak to impact that average (the Georgia native missing the New Year’s Eve win over the Charlotte Hornets).
The Cal-Berkeley product has shot 40.8 % from three and 52.1 % overall, with the highest effective field goal percentage of the three at .594.
Brown has averaged 21.5 points and 8.5 rebounds per game over the three-game stretch, shooting a ridiculous 57.1 % from three and 57.7 % overall.
While it’s much too small a sample size to draw any strong conclusions from, it does demonstrate a few important things behind Boston’s recent success.
Most importantly, when teams have to guard this trio together, it becomes a near-impossible proposition defensively, creating open looks any time a defender tries to help.
It also demonstrates why dealing for a big man isn’t a priority, and could even become a problem if they demand touches on offense.
It also shows a diminished need for bigs to soak up rebounds on either end of the court with the wing starters pulling down 23.2 boards per game combined since Dec. 31.
We don't talk enough about how much better Jaylen Brown is this season. He scored 31 points last night in a Celtics win over the Heat and is averaging a career-high 19.9 points on good scoring efficiency. I made this video to show Brown’s improvement as a scorer off the dribble. pic.twitter.com/2AHDrrTKRd
— Kevin O'Connor (@KevinOConnorNBA) December 5, 2019
With both Brown and Hayward having high offensive efficiency for long stretches this season, it’s not a knock on Tatum that he has been less accurate overall this season, as he tends to attempt shots with a greater degree of difficulty.
This is expected of him, and not a case of him playing outside of his role.
Without the experience of Hayward or the cover he and the Butler product provide Brown, he’s going to have up-and-down nights like he had against the Hawks until he becomes more confident on a night-to-night basis.
Add in that All-NBA point guard Kemba Walker — who has missed the last two games due to illness — has been averaging 22.5 points himself this season while shooting 39.8 % from deep, and you get one of the league’s most potent offenses.
[lawrence-related id=27135]
[lawrence-related id=27122]