You don’t have to look far to figure out what the main talking point from the Celtics’ 108-105 overtime loss in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals will be.
Boston became the first team in league history to attempt 60 three-pointers in a playoff game. They misfired on 45 of those 60 (75%), setting an NBA postseason record for most three-point misses in a game. It was the third-most misses from beyond the arc in NBA history, and set a new franchise record for the Celtics.
“To me, I look at the process and the shot quality. So our shot quality was high,” head coach Joe Mazzulla said. “The points in the paint were even. We shot one more layup than they did. We shot 10 non-paint twos. They shot much more than that. So you have to take a look at the process of what we’re trying to accomplish, and we were able to accomplish good results for the most part. There are probably eight to 10 shots we can be better at.”
Mazzulla used the word “process” nine times in his postgame press conference. He and the Celtics are analytical in their approach and rely on in-house metrics to track that process, metrics that don’t show up in a traditional box score. Mazzulla seemed confident postgame that the process was generating good looks, and the Knicks saw it the same way.
“They still got a lot of threes up. It’s on us to limit their attempts,” Jalen Brunson said after the game. “They had a lot of easy looks that we were thankful they missed. Continue to make them tough. You don’t know when they’re going to be able to knock them down. At the beginning of the year, they almost had a record on us. We’ve got to be better in that aspect and not let them shoot as much and not let them get open shots up.”
Of course, when you take 60 threes, they’re not all going to be clean looks—and they certainly weren’t. OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges, and Josh Hart deserve plenty of credit for that. But it was also a historically bad shooting night for a team full of capable shooters.
Only Payton Pritchard (2-of-5, 40%) shot better than 31% from deep. Jaylen Brown went 1-of-10 (10%), Jayson Tatum 4-of-15 (26.7%), Derrick White 5-of-16 (31.3%), Jrue Holiday 2-of-7 (28.6%), Al Horford 1-of-5 (20%), and Sam Hauser 0-of-2. Add it all up, and the Celtics shot just 25% from beyond the arc, marking only the fifth time this season they’ve shot that poorly.
It was just the 15th time it’s happened under Mazzulla (regular season and playoffs combined), which averages out to once every 19 games—only 5% of the time.
“At the end of the day, you have to make the ones when you are open,” said Mazzulla. “And you have to trust the process of what you do. The process of our shot quality was good. It’s the margins and the stuff that put pressure on your shot quality. Whether it’s your transition defense, your rebounding, your defending without fouling, your attention to detail on personnel, all those things play a part in putting pressure on the process in which you’re trying to do on the offensive end.”
Thirty-two of the Celtics’ 60 three-point attempts were considered “open,” with the closest defender 4–6 feet away. They shot just 7-of-32 (21.9%) on those looks. Twenty-four were considered “wide open,” with the closest defender 6+ feet away. They hit 7-of-24 (29.2%) on those. Only four of their three-point attempts had a defender within 2–4 feet (1-of-4), and none came with a defender within 0-2 feet.
The Celtics shot 40.7% on “wide open” looks in the regular season, a -11.6% difference. They shot 35.0% on “open” looks, a -13.1% difference.
The threes, naturally, will dominate the postgame discussion. But make two or three more open looks, and Boston probably wins. Hit four or five more, and it’s a double-digit victory. The tone around this loss would be completely different. The volume will draw headlines Tuesday, as it always does after a cold night—but it’s worth noting the Celtics went 31-7 (81.5%) this season when attempting 50 or more threes.
“We don’t want them to shoot more threes. They got great shooters, man,” said Josh Hart. “We just tried to make it tough for them, play physical. You never want a team like that to shoot more threes. We were trying to take away the threes, and they still took 60. They’ve got a bunch of guys that shoot high 30s [percent], 40s from three. They’re good shooters, and some of them were good looks.”
Yes, there were times the Celtics should have attacked the rim. Especially Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, who shot a 5-of-25 (20%) from downtown. But all in all, the three-point looks weren't an issue.
“There were probably some times that we settled,” Tatum said. “I could’ve put more pressure on the rim, but there were a lot of times we felt like we got some really, really good looks and we just couldn’t convert.”
Perhaps they were still shaking off some rust from the Orlando series, where they attempted just 156 threes over five games, the fewest in any five-game stretch of the Mazzulla era. Their 59 makes during that span were also a low. But this is who the Celtics are. They’re going to take the open shot and trust their shooters. It’s the formula that got them here and helped win a title last season. One cold night doesn’t mean it’s the wrong approach, and history suggests they won’t have many more like it.
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