The Celtics have become mastered as creating one of basketball’s most efficient shots: the catch-and-shoot 3.
The Celtics are (in)famously shooting over fifty three-pointers a game. Critics and detractors have accused Boston of ruining the game, but nonetheless, their commitment to outside shooting has become one of the many weapons they’ve used to amass a 14-3 record.
After a win against the Wizards when they shot a dismal 11-for-46 from behind the arc, they bounced back at home, hitting 21-of-56 en route to beating the Timberwolves at TD Garden.
Now, not all threes are equal. League-wide, teams are hitting the corner shorter threes at about a 40% clip; above the break, that percentage drops to about 35%. More or less, Boston is tracking in and around those numbers.
However, what’s giving the Celtics an edge over the league is their ability to generate catch-and-shoot 3s.
The team is second in the NBA in total C&S 3FGMs at 11.9 behind the Bulls and they’re hitting them as if they were all corner 3s at a 40.8% clip. Consider that number for a second. A third of the Celtics field goal attempts are coming from one of the highest efficiency shots and that’s lead to the third most efficient offense in the league at 120.5 points per 100 possessions. And that’s without Kristaps Porzingis.
To generate a quality catch-and-shoot opportunity, a couple of things have to happen: 1) forcing multiple defenders to collapse on one player, 2) creating space so that opposing defenses can’t recover quickly, and 3) finding the open man. Not exactly rocket science, but with such an emphasis on defending the arc in the modern NBA, intentionality and precision are required to be this efficient.
Jaylen Brown would hit five straight threes to start the game. There were some crazy heat checks, including one in isolation over Rudy Gobert, but a trio of them were in the C&S variety. Even is semi-transition, Boston’s spacing is exquisite. They’re five-out with Al Horford heading to the corner to draw out Gobert from the paint.
It’s in the halfcourt where it is absolutely deadly. Tatum and Derrick White have been so good in the pick-and-short-roll this season because teams can’t go under screens and Tatum murders switches with his size and strength.
Remember that behind-the-back pass to Horford for a 3 in the Game 3 comeback in Indy? That’s become commonplace this season. Tatum has entered the LeBron stage of his career as a mature playmaker that instinctively knows where everybody is on the floor. The ball tic-tac-toes to another Brown catch-and-shoot.
After crossing the 40-threes-a-night threshold last year, four teams (Hornets, Bulls, Warriors, and these Timberwolves) have followed suit and emulated the champs’ offensive approach. However, there are few teams that can litter shooters on the level of Payton Pritchard (47.6%), Sam Hauser (33.3%), and Derrick White (47.9%) around Tatum.
It’s PP running PnR with Tatum here, but the results are similar, this time with Hauser as the recipient of the ball pinging around the arc.