Boston Celtics: 3 takeaways from the month of October

2. The offensive has struggled

The main disappointment for this team has been its struggles on offense. To say the Celtics have struggled is actually an understatement. For a team starting Irving, Jaylen Brown, Hayward, Jayson Tatum and Al Horford, one would expect that they would not have so many problems in this department.

Yet we’re in the month of November now and the team has struggled mightily on that side of the ball. At this point, Boston ranks as one of the worst offenses, posting a 100.8 offensive rating that puts them at 28th in the NBA.

They have not scored a lot of points, averaging 102.4 per game. That puts them as the second-worst team in the league. For a team that’s supposed to make a run at the NBA Finals, they won’t be able to do so unless they figure the offense out.

This has been somewhat acceptable because their defense is elite, but on nights where the defense isn’t there, the Celtics will likely lose unless they start producing on the other end.

Boston’s best offensive player is Irving, but that hasn’t been the case this season. He’s currently averaging 16.4 points per game on 42.7 percent shooting from the field and 30.6 percent shooting from 3. Fortunately, his percentages have gone up since the beginning of the season. In his last game against the Detroit Pistons, he showed the NBA what they’ve been waiting for.

He scored 31 points on 10-of-16 shooting from the field and 4-for-7 from downtown. This will help the team out tremendously if he can come around. However, players like Hayward and Brown have not been good this year.

Hayward has struggled and it hasn’t been a surprise because he did have that gruesome injury last year. Brown, on the other hand, needs to step up and find his groove like he did last year. The Celtics as a whole need to get better if they want to win games and potentially control the Eastern Conference.