The Team That's Too Obsessed With Threes

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:01]After looking at all these teams throughout the season, my prediction is the Boston Celtics.

[00:00:08]Well, I was wrong. So, how the heck did we get here? Well, in game five, with just under 40 seconds to go in the first half, Jaylen Brown came down and knocked down a three to put the Celtics up nine.

[00:00:21]At that point, it looked like they were well on their way towards closing out a first round series win against the Sixers. But just four days later, Jaylen Brown had the same look again, but decided to find Peyton Pritchard in the corner, who then missed a three. Then on the other end, Tyresese Maxi came down, attacked the paint, and scored to put the Sixers up five, and they eventually stole game seven on the road as well.

[00:00:44]After the loss, when asked about the philosophy of the offense, this was the answer that each Celtic gave.

[00:00:51]>> If like half of the shots we miss go in, like we're not having this conversation. So, I don't know. We had a 3-1 lead. So, people didn't say that when we had a 3-1 lead. And uh like I said, we have good looks and if we hit them, then nobody says anything. So, it's the end of the story. You just got to make them.

[00:01:09]>> I thought we did a great job reading the two-on-ones, taking what the defense gave us. And uh in the games we lost, the other team shot over 38% from three.

[00:01:17]And so, um you got to make shots. You have to be able to do that.

[00:01:20]>> This right here is everything that has played the Celtics over the last few years. This is the team that is too obsessed with the three-pointer. Over the last two years, we've seen the same story play out. The Celtics are one of the best teams in the East in the regular season. Everyone expects them to make a run to the finals, but they didn't lose to a team that they shouldn't have lost to. Last year, they're heavily favored against the Knicks, but blew 20point leads that cost them the series. This year, that happened again as they lost a 3-1 lead to the seven seed Sixers. In that same time span is also when their three-point attempts skyrocketed. When Udoko was coaching, the Celtics three-point attempts topped out at 37 a game. But when Missoula took over, they've averaged 423 cents and had topped out at 48 attempts just last year. They led the league in three-point attempts three of those four years. And that continued into the playoffs. The way they generate these threes is pretty simple. They like to spread the floor out, let one of Tatum or Brown try to get downhill, and then kick it out to an open shooter.

[00:02:22]Because a lot of teams don't have the personnel to guard both the Jays, the Celtics believe that this is the way to play. It's worked as they've had a top five offense in the regular season each year in the Joe Missoula era. But in the playoffs, their three-point percentage would drop down, the offense will look slow and lethargic, and they would end up losing. And there's a few reasons why this offense is not that effective, especially in the playoffs. The first reason comes down to their scheme. Just this season, the Celtics knew they had a deficiency in talent, so they changed their offense to be more effective. What they did was use their guys from the wings to either set screens or clear out space so that there's more room to work with. This allowed the Celtics to play with more space and leverage their shooting to help them get to the basket.

[00:03:08]So, even without a top five player, the Celtics offense actually got better because they started implementing more principles to create more space and thus get easier shots. However, once it got to the playoffs, none of this happened.

[00:03:22]Instead, they went back to hunting for mismatches with nothing else going on.

[00:03:26]And if they didn't hunt mismatches, then they would run a high ball screen, make one pass, and then shoot deep threes.

[00:03:33]What we're seeing here is a team that has gone back to simplifying the offense down because they think they have the better talent on the floor. And while that is true in most cases, this is not the right personnel to run this sort of system. The first concern here is that they don't have the ball handlers to consistently create separation from their defenders. Now, that might sound crazy, but we saw this quite a bit, especially with Jaylen Brown. One of the most prominent things that got exposed was his tendency to push off quite a bit. On the NBA Australia channel, I mentioned how the Sixers created a lot of offensive fouls on Jaylen Brown. They would be very physical with them because they knew he didn't have the ball handling to shake them. For example, Brown is going at the smaller Tyrese Maxi and as he starts to drive, Maxi has both arms on him to help maintain his position. Brown then uses his right arm to get into the lane and that's what he pushes off. So, the offensive foul is called. In this series alone, the Sixers drew 10 offensive fouls from just Jaylen Brown. And it worked in the grand scheme as Brown shot just under 42% in the last three games because of how the Sixers defended him. For a lot of the series, the Sixers did a good job funneling Brown left. By doing that, this allowed them to stay in front of him. So, by the time he discontinued his dribble, there was no opening. So they knew that Brown would use his strength to try and shed his defenders, which is why he got called for so many offensive fouls. More importantly though, if Brown doesn't create separation on his defender, the Sixers don't ever feel the need to help.

[00:05:04]So a lot of times you see Brown that's settling for tough twos anyways instead of getting those kick out threes. Jason Tatum also had his own troubles in this series. The matchup that stood out the most was against VJ Edgecom. While Tatum had four inches and almost 20 pounds on him, he struggled to get to the basket.

[00:05:23]So even though he had this mismatch and a lot of space, he never really knew how to best score against him. And that's the thing with a system like this.

[00:05:31]Missoula is heavily relying on his guys to drive the ball hard, hope the defense collapses, and then spray it out for threes. But it's hard to do that when Brown and Tatum are not the most shifty or fast guys on the floor. What that means is there needs to be more initial setup to really help them break free easier. One thing they did well was use the flare screen. When Tatum pushes the ball up, Brown starts to drive. But this flare screen by Kada helps distract the defense. So Embiid and Ubé both collapse on Brown even though he didn't even beat George off the dribble. And now Tatum has a wide open three. Here's another one. In early transition, Kada sets a little flare screen so when Tatum catches it, he can go downhill. And that's an easy layup. What the Celtics need to do here is be more disciplined.

[00:06:17]If there are more options and players see that there's better ways to get shots, they'll do more to create the ball movement and sequences that create good offense. But when the system is freelancing like this, you get these sort of shots, which can kill the offense. The second concern is that the Celtics don't have players with passing mentalities. Tatum is by far their best passer, but besides him, they have a lot of guys that create for themselves. So, what happens at times is there's some tunnel vision, so they miss guys that they should hit. On this one, Derek White is running pick and roll with Jordan Walsh, and two Sixers jump to White, but White just blindly throws this to Tatum because that's what the play calls for. And instead of sitting in the paint, Walsh just runs to the three-point line. So, Boston has to go high pick and roll. The shot is not a bad shot, but it's not the best shot they could have gotten. Later in the game, Jaylen Brown has the ball. And again, Kada sets a great flare screen, so Brown has all this space to work, but because he's thinking score, he's a count late on this pass to Tatum. And that's a little more contested than what you'd want. The problem here is not necessarily that they are horrid passers. But because most players on this roster are great ball handlers and scorers, the ball is going to naturally stick a little more. So, what would benefit an offense, especially that freelances a lot, is someone that can set the tempo of the offense. That's why someone like Tyrese Hallebertton, who doesn't put up goddy stats, can have such a huge impact on Indiana's offense.

[00:07:43]He's not the scorer like the Jays, but he pushes the pace, finds teammates early and often and moves that makes Indiana's offense the way it is. With the Celtics personnel, what you get is a very slow paced offense. Everyone is looking to find their own shot. That then slows the game down and shortens it enough to the point where it keeps these less talented teams in the game. While it is true that the Celtics miss some good looks, the truth is that no one would be upset if they consistently work to get great looks. The issue is their process is not good enough and the players they have can maximize what Mazoula is looking for. But the larger point here is that the approach may be wrong altogether. The live by the three, die by the three strategy doesn't make sense, especially for a team that is more talented. In the regular season, that may work itself out because you play 82 games. So, Boston's offense looks efficient in the regular season, but then they're taking a high variance strategy into a high variance environment, also known as the postseason. Yes, shooting and making 15 to 16 threes will probably knock out any team that they're playing. But if the shooting does not go their way, all of a sudden, the gap in talent between the two teams starts to shrink. And as the series went on, Philly, who did a good job mixing up their shots, all of a sudden was suddenly in the driver's seat, and the Celtics were now the ones that were desperately looking for answers. Due to the personnel on the roster and Missoula's philosophy, I wonder if they are not suited for each other. Yes, I know that Missoula helped the Celtics win a championship in 2024, but the talent on their roster superseded any of the teams that they had to face, but as teams got healthier and better, we're starting to see a serious trend during his tenure with the Celtics. And things won't get better if they continue to play this way. So, hope you guys enjoyed this video. If so, please feel free to like and subscribe.

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