Tag: three point shooting

Boston should target bench shooting, scoring via trade

While there’s a case to be made for a bigger move, shoring up the bench rotation with shooting and scoring should be the Boston Celtics top priority.

The Boston Celtics will not fix their recent woes by trading away one of their starters.

While it might be in the Celtics’ best interest to explore the return they could get for veteran forward Gordon Hayward, such a move is less about his recent play.

It would be more about roster management and maximizing the responsibility handed to wings Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum, which then begs the question — are there things behind this losing streak which can be fixed with a trade?

The short answer is yes, but also no.

Let’s tackle the “no” first. Defensive lapses and unengaged play — particularly early — has been a problem, maybe the problem in all the losses save perhaps against the Milwaukee Bucks.

They won as much through superior talent as they did execution, though there is an argument to be made that Boston might have pulled off the upset had they come out a little more coherent.

And we’ve seen this team come out with that level of intensity, with plenty of quality wins this season against playoff-level rosters.

No need to trade to get the level of energy and buy-in they’ll need on defense — they already have demonstrated that. But they have not demonstrated much in the way of bench scoring, and that shouldn’t be much of a surprise.

Now for the “yes”.

Bench scoring has been a serious problem for the Celtics, who don’t have a consistent threat off the bench save veterans Marcus Smart and Enes Kanter, and even then, both have had rough stretches, particularly recently.

As the Athletic’s Jay King notes, reserve forward Semi Ojeleye leads the team’s 3-point shooting from the bench with 21 total made 3-pointers.

For the season.

Smart attempted more (and made half!) in his last game. Clearly, this is unsustainable, with much of the play without multiple starters on the floor looking more like 1990s basketball than anyone should be OK with in 2020.

Moreover, there isn’t a single player outside of the starters who is averaging north of ten points per game, and only two players shooting better than .350 from deep, wing Javone Green at 35.3 % and Ojeleye at 36.2 %.

The duo take a combined two 3-point attempts per game.

There have been a host of trade proposal articles focused on sprucing up Boston’s starting five, and some of them could even perhaps be a good idea.

But for the Celtics to truly make a move that is both realistic and likely to impact winning, consolidating some talent by moving some end-of-bench players will help considerably.

The team is unlikely to bring back all of their seven rookies next season anyway, and could get a jump on both acquiring the contracts of players who could help in a season the team will likely look to contend as well as opening up more playing time for players who could have an impact.

So while the future of Hayward in green and white is definitely a conversation worth having, if it’s serious trade talk we’re looking to get into, the best place to start is the second unit rotation.

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Celtics players recall their most memorable trey

As the game’s most popular shot turns 40 years old, Boston Celtics players recount their favorite 3-point shot of their basketball careers from high school to the pros.

The 3-point shot has turned 40 years old, and The Athletic’s Jared Weiss did some poking around to assemble accounts of a number of the Boston Celtics’ favorite trey of their careers to celebrate the game-changing shot.

With how heavily the deep shot is leaned in in this era of analytics and shooters, there’s plenty to choose from — some dating back to well before these players sniffed a minute’s playing time in the Association.

Others, a three is something so rare to them that even making an attempt was memorable.

And then, there’s the curious case of Grant Williams.

The rookie famously went two months into this NBA season before hitting a trey, his tendency to miss the outside shot becoming an event unto itself every time he tried to shake his shooting funk.

“Brad [Wanamaker] passed out,” offered the Tennessee product on his teammate’s reaction to him finally sinking the shot at the time. “That’s crazy.”

He even (lovingly) received the worst of insults for a Celtic with 3-point aspirations: “Yeah, we were calling him ‘Ben Simmons,'” offered the Georgia native.

The Cal-Berkeley product lists his first NBA game-winning trey as his personal favorite, a last-minute shot off of a Semi Ojeleye assists against the Utah Jazz in March, 2018.

He nearly remembers the pummeling an excited Tatum gave him after sinking it more, though; “[after the shot went in, he] was punching me in the chest,” offered the Georgia native. “He punched me like 10 times. He was punching the shit out of me, for real.”

“He gave me a little four-piece, boom-boom. That hurt,” he added.

Speaking of the Duke product, Tatum’s favorite shot from deep came just moments after the most iconic play of his young career, the dunk on LeBron James in the series against the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2018 NBA East Finals.

“I dunked on LeBron and then came back with a side-step 3. I thought we was going to win the game after that, so I thought we was going to the championship,” offered the Missouri native.

“I dunked it, we got a stop, and then we ran the same play,” he elaborated.

“Somebody got doubled in the post, so they swung it around, swing, swing, George Hill closed out, I stepped to the side and shot it. I just got back on defense, but I thought we’re gonna win this game and go to the championship.”

All-NBA point guard Kemba Walker looks back to even before his legendary run to the NCAA title with the UConn Huskies in 2011 for his favorite three.

“High school, my junior year, at Fordham University in the championship game, I hit the game-winning 3,” Walker explained.

“That’s what got me going and got me recognition and stuff like that. It was against Christ the King. The play was for one of my teammates but it got broken down. It was a nasty shot too. Pump fake, pump fake, threw it up and it counted for the game. It was crazy.”

“Everyone rushed the court. It was a good time,” he added.

It seems the Cardiac moniker has deeper roots than most of us knew, the Bronx native having had the killer instinct almost as long as he had his killer footwork.

There’s a wealth of such stories from the rest of the team available in the original article by Weiss; be sure to check them out at the Athletic (subscription required).

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