A Tale Of The Hot And Cold Boston Celtics

The Boston Celtics continue to impress and disappoint at the same time

The Boston Celtics have been one of the NBA’s most confusing teams. It is early, but the Celtics have shown that they can compete with some of the better teams in the NBA like the Atlanta Hawks and the Oklahoma City Thunder, but then they turn around and almost lose to the Philadelphia 76ers at home and look like a team that has no business making the playoffs. When the team wins, their margin of victory is 17.7 — and win they lose, they lose by an average of 11 points.

There seems to be no happy medium for the Celtics’ success; the team either brings it on the court or they look disastrous. When the Celtics are shooting above 43 percent from the field, Boston has won seven games, and when they are shooting below that mark, they have lost eight. The Celtics have won two games when they have shot below 41 percent; one was the first game of the season against Philadelphia (34.1) and the other was against Atlanta (40.8).

Boston’s hot and cold shooting woes are making this team hard to read because some nights they look like one of the better teams in the Eastern Conference, and some games they look like a team that should be in the lottery.

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Defense keeps Boston in games

The offense for Boston has been very inconsistent. Some of the games they have won, the have no business winning. The reason they have been winning games despite their shooting woes — most notably from 3-point range (31.4 percent) — is because Boston’s defense has been one of the NBA’s best.

The Celtics have been a top ten defense for the majority of the season, and right now they are No. 8 in the NBA, allowing opponents to score 97.6 PPG. Boston has also been No. 1 in the league in steals by averaging 11.1 per game and No. 1 in forcing turnovers, with opponents turning the ball over on average 18.4 times against the Celtics.

Overall

The defense has been great for the Celtics thus far, and no one would have predicted that this team could be a top ten defense. If it was not for Boston’s defense, they would have a far worse record than 9-8. The Celtics have faced nine teams that have winning records so far, and they have only won two of those games (against Atlanta and Oklahoma City).

The Celtics still have a lot to prove in the next couple months because right now the team is not clicking as a whole. They are relying heavily on their defense to pick them up when they are down, and on Isaiah Thomas, who is averaging 21.1 PPG, shooting 42.2 percent from the field on 17 attempts (32.5 percent from three). The Celtics offensive rating is 103.1 (19th in the NBA) and their defensive rating is 98.9 (4th in the NBA); their offense has to be better if they want to compete for a playoff spot.

The Celtics need to find a happy medium where they can find ways to win on the nights shots aren’t falling. Right now, they are winning big and losing big, they have only had four games that were decided by single digits. The Celtics have lost three of those close games as well, something they’ll need to improve upon should they make a playoff appearance down the road.

The Celtics next game is against one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference in the Miami Heat, who have one of the NBA’s best defenses. The C’s cannot afford another blowout loss or win; they need to win a tight and gritty game because that will make them stronger in the long run.