Celtics’ unusual offense a study in extremes

With Rajon Rondo orchestrating, Boston is shooting 50.6 percent. (Brian Babineau/NBAE via Getty Images)

The Celtics (for now) are testing out an interesting proposition: Can a team succeed on offense while excelling only at making two-point shots?

I understand, folks, that “making two-point shots” encompasses many different skills, including setting screens, passing, penetrating, running the floor and shooting. But we haven’t seen an offense quite this extreme in a long time. The Celtics are attempting the fewest three-pointers in the league by far (12.8 per game). Only two teams are attempting fewer foul shots per game. Only two teams have grabbed a lower percentage of offensive rebounds. And, as usual, the Celtics are turning the ball over too much.

You can see the extremes. The Celtics are completely reliant on making the first two-point shot they take. This is really unusual, particularly in a league in which just about every team has accepted the three-point shot as a crucial weapon. The Celtics themselves shot 17.5 threes per game last year and 19 per game when they won the title in 2007-08.

It’s a good thing Boston is shooting 50.6 percent overall and an astounding 52.3 percent on two-point shots, both tops in the league. That brings up the question: Can they maintain this hot shooting? And, if they can’t, how can they keep their offense afloat?

Since the mid-1990s, only the Suns have shot 50 percent or better from the field for an entire season, in 2007-2008 and ’08-09. But maybe the Celtics can do it. They have a point guard who is slicing through defenses and getting shooters easy looks. They were a very accurate inside-shooting team last season, and they’ve since added Shaquille O’Neal, who routinely hits three-quarters of his shots at the rim. Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce are both healthy and shooting better than 50 percent — a mark Pierce has never cracked over a full season. Without Rasheed Wallace around, most of the threes Boston does take will be good looks, which is why the team trails only the Lakers and Spurs in three-point percentage.

I should note that Boston’s offense started off last season going in a similarly weird direction. The Celtics were the hottest-shooting team in the league over the first three weeks, but they ranked 20th or worse (and, in some cases, way worse) in offensive rebounding, turnovers and free-throw attempts. None of the last 24 conference finalists has ranked 20th or worse in more than two of these four categories on offense: effective field-goal percentage (a version of shooting percentage that factors in threes), offensive rebounding rate, turnovers and free throws per field-goal attempt. This Boston team ranks first in the shooting category and no better than 22nd in the other three.

Boston began last season this way before making a commitment to get to the line more; it finished sixth in free throws per field-goal attempt while sticking near the bottom of the league in offensive rebounding and turnovers. But the Celtics got better at something besides two-point shooting. And, in the playoffs, they cut their turnovers and continued to march to the line more often.

This Celtics team will likely have to make those kinds of changes if it wants to maintain a top-10 offensive ranking, which it has now and did not have last season. I suspect you’ll see both the three-point attempts and foul shots start to come up soon; it’s rare — and nearly unheard of since 2003-04 — for a team to average such a low number of both free throws and threes.

Regardless of what happens from here, the Celtics are doing some pretty spectacular stuff on offense right now.