After a disappointing start of the season with the Celtics having a 10-10 record, it was so bad that people were wondering whether they would even make the playoffs. This even had Celtics guard Marcus Smart say:



“Last year, teams when they came in and played the Celtics, they knew they were in for a fight, This year, teams can’t wait to play us and that’s a problem.”

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Well it seems like they have found what made them scary last season and are in a 7 game win streak (at the making of this article), and don’t look like stopping that run anytime soon. One may argue that it were just the Bulls, Knicks, and Cavs. Well that may be true but the fact of the matter is that the Celtics are starting to look dominant. Against the Bulls, you can argue that an NBA team can’t just give up a 56 point deficit AT HOME! Against the Knicks, they beat us in our last game against them, and for the Cavs we didn’t exactly do well against them in the pre-season. For me though every win counts and there’s no such thing as easy opponents as there are lots of cases of upsets and teams have got to give their 110% every night. With this I must say that the Celtics have finally found their groove and it seemed like they are dominating teams left, right, and center. They have new and improved stats, and the stats also show that this team seems to be an even more dominant Celtic team than last year’s. They now sit just 4.5 games behind the top seed (Toronto Raptors) with a 17-10 win/loss record. Let’s figure out what changed from the Celtics that made them start this run of good form.

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NEW LINEUP

It’s no secret that the Celtics are running a much different lineup from what they use to run with in the start of the season. From an eye watery Kyrie, Brown, Tatum, Hayward, and Horford. They mixed the lineup and went with a Kyrie, Smart, Tatum, Morris, and Horford/Baynes (depending on match-up). While the first line up may look like eye candy, the second one is surprisingly the stronger, more balanced, and more dominant line up for the team. This doesn’t exactly mean that Hayward and Brown really suck, it’s just that they don’t work well together, and with the replacement of Marcus Smart and Marcus Morris the team has never been more balanced than ever before. With the new lineup, the Celtics still have the offensive prowess of Kyrie Irving and Jayson Tatum, but this time there is more fire power on the defensive side of things as Marcus Smart and Jaylen Brown are very good defenders, and by good I mean they make any opponent frustrated as to how much they guard you defensively, They don’t exactly need to hold the ball as much as Brown and Hayward as that’s covered by Tatum and Kyrie, even if I say this though Morris has been very deadly offensively as of late as he’s been scoring big double digit points in the recent games that saw him starting.



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This new lineup then features Hayward and Brown coming off the bench and that means that the second Unit consists of Rozier, Brown, Hayward, Theis, and Baynes. With that second unit, they could still keep the pace going while the starters are gone as Terry Rozier is more of a playmaking PG. He doesn’t really rely on ISO plays and ends up giving the ball to whoever is open whether it be Brown or Hayward. Then Baynes and Theis keep the defensive pressure which makes the team a lot balanced even with the starters out. As you can see with this new line up, they complement each other more which is great, given that basketball is a team game and not an individual performance.



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SMARTER PLAYS

Brad Stevens is definitely one of the best coaches in the league and draws up mind blowing plays, but during the start of the season his plays and how he utilized the players have been kind of suspect as he was letting them force lots of shots and by a lot I mean A TON! Having Brad Stevens as the coach would make you think that he’d add some discipline on the Celtics shot selection. Apparently that wasn’t the case and he was making them shoot lots and lots of threes and my favourite shot *sarcasm* the mid ranger. You can’t blame them for trying shots though as a lot of those were open shots, they just couldn’t make their shots sink. During that stretch of games, they were only averaging 42.3% from the mid range which made them 14th in the league with most number of mid rangers but landed 10th in Midrange attempts with attempting 16.5 mid range jumpers per game. This makes you wonder; where’s the efficiency in there? They also shot only 33.7% from corner threes and 36.1% from above the break threes. As you can see from these stats they were just missing their shots. What made this even more depressing was that they were 3rd in the league for 3 point attempts. Which brings Boston to 12th in the true shooting percentage category. Which means they just were very inefficient with their shot selections. What was also different for the Celtics was how they weren’t passing for better shots:





“When Stevens talks about the team’s “personality” changing, what he means is that the level of togetherness isn’t like it was in previous seasons, when players sacrificed for the greater good and looked for the extra pass to go from a good to a great shot.”

Kevin O’Connor, The Ringer

The Celtics were just very complacent during the first 20 games of the season. They seem to have forgotten that they were known for giving out that extra pass to make good shots.



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The Celtics after the first 20 games of the season saw themselves having to change their approach and with that change of approach they took lesser shots in the mid range by only shooting 15.2 mid range jumpers per game but shooting 50% of that 15 shots per game. Which makes them lead the league in Mid Range percentage. Their corner 3 has rocketed to 40.7% with 36.6% from above the break threes. These are much more better numbers than before as the Celtics have been looking at smarter shot attempts and are attacking the basket a lot more. Another thing that has been improved is how quickly the team takes per possession. During the first 20 games of the season, you would constantly see Celtics players putting up shots with about 14-16 seconds still in the shot clock. Rushing your shot would mean that you don’t find better shots that would see the ball go into the basket more. So with the adjustments after 20 games, they decided to milk more from the shot clock and try to find ways to either get an open shot or an open lane to the basket. The team has now understood the importance of being extra careful with their shot attempts and are a lot more patient with how they score.



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STEROID OFFENSIVE RATING

I cannot stress enough the fact that the Boston Celtics during this month of December have been killing it from the offensive end with having a 122.4 Offensive Rating! YES! 122.4, never would I have known that the Celtics have this scoring power inside them this whole time. The Celtics have been known for having one of the best defense in the league but every year their weakness has always been their offense. Well this has changed from being a mediocre offensive team to a juggernaut offensive team. The team behind them at 2nd is the Sacramento Kings with a 116.6. With their offense surging, their defense never let up a bit as they are 3rd in the league in the Defensive Rating with 100.8, just behind the Raptors and the Pacers. Does this mean that the Celtics would consistently put up these amount of points? Probably not. It’s only a matter of time before teams figure out how to limit the shots we make, but I’d want to be proven wrong there. Something I have to point out as well is how much Tatum has been more consistent with his shots as he has been shooting at 56% from the field goal. Lastly, the Celtics have shot 87% from the free throw this December which is a major spike from the 78.9% they shot during November, and it’s great to see that their free throws are starting to go in as it has helped them add more points in the board in the charity strike and are not wasting the opportunity for free points. A friend once told me that free-throws are one of the most important shots to master to become a champion, and well there is a great amount of truth in that statement as free-throws definitely could make or break a close game.



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CONCLUSION

So with all that in mind, the Celtics are definitely rising again from what seemed like a disappointing start to the season. They finally have been disciplined with their shot selection and players are getting more aggressive with the basket. They have kind of limited the amount of mid range jumpers they take for a game and they are finally getting all their shots in while not letting up at all in the defense department. The team seems to really start to click, with players knowing their roles. They are now doing what Brad Stevens wants them to do. In the meantime, the Celtics should just continue playing how they usually play and always aim to get 60 points before halftime. They could maybe add some pieces (Veterans) here and there to make the team well guided but with the team they have at the moment they could give the Raptors and probably the Warriors a run for their money. 2019 NBA Champs? We’ll never know. We still got a whole lot of games left before we could really judge what would happen in the playoffs. As always, just #CUsRise ☘️☘️☘️