Boston Celtics: Shooting Woes Are Hurting The C’s

The Boston Celtics started their season with a victory over the Philadelphia 76ers, and the team showed positive signs during that contest, but they were not really tested. The Celtics hosted the Toronto Raptors and San Antonio Spurs the next two contests; this is where some of the Celtics’ problems and woes were displayed.

The team lost both of those games pretty convincingly, they lost to the Raptors 113-103 and they lost to the Spurs 95-87 (trailed basically the whole game). In both of these losses, the Celtics showed that they still have problems shooting consistently from the field, and particularly from deep. In those games, the Celtics shot a poor 36.6 percent from the field and an even worse 23.6 percent from three. Those numbers are pretty gross to look at seeing that the Celtics do have a talented roster that can score, but players like Evan Turner, David Lee and Kelly Olynyk are not shooting well from the field at all.

Both Lee and Turner are shooting 25 percent from the field this season, and Olynyk is shooting 30.8 percent. These are small sample sizes, but the Celtics have been shooting the ball horribly from all parts of the court.

The two players with the highest three-point shooting percentages are Amir Johnson (who also leads the team in overall field goal percentage) and Jared Sullinger (second on the team in overall field goal percentage). Johnson is shooting 40 percent from deep and Sullinger is shooting 33.3 percent from deep, which is tied for second on the team with Jonas Jerebko. Isaiah Thomas is the team’s leading scorer at 22.3 PPG, but he is shooting a horrendous 20 percent from three.

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There seems to be a problem with the Celtics’ shooting right now, and the team needs to figure out something soon on the offensive end.

Free-throws are the Celtics’ friend so far

The Celtics are 27th in the league in three-point shooting (26.6 percent) and 25th in the league in overall field goal percentage (39.6 percent). The Celtics are scoring many of their points from the free-throw line — they have attempted 27 free throws this year, which is 11th most in the NBA — and the team is shooting an impressive 84.1 percent from the line (4th in the league). The Celtics have been terrific from the free-throw line so far, particularly Thomas who is shooting around 92 percent from the line.

Since the team is struggling as a whole shooting from the field, they are trying to draw fouls while attacking the rim. The team actually is not shooting too bad when they are shooting inside the three-point line, the Celtics are shooting 45 percent from inside the arc. Boston is also averaging 100.7 PPG, which is 16th in the league. It really is the lack of efficient shooting that is bringing this team down as a whole because their defense is playing pretty formidably, and Boston has forced the most turnovers in the league (they have also averaged 16.7 TPG, which is close to the bottom of the league).

Overall

The Celtics are hopeful that their shooting woes will not carry over for a long stretch of the season. Boston knows that they have to shoot better from the field, particularly from deep. Thomas, Marcus Smart (who has been playing well), and Avery Bradley need to bring those three-point numbers up because they are the go-to three-point shooters. Amir Johnson has shot well from deep and so has Jared Sullinger, but it is hard to believe that they will keep their consistent shooting up. Do not be surprised if sharpshooting rookie R.J. Hunter, earns some playing time if the Celtics keep shooting this bad.

Shooting is the problem that needs to be fixed for the Celtics soon.