The Boston Celtics don’t just take more 3s than any other team in the NBA, they also take the most difficult ones. On the other hand, the Toronto Raptors take the second fewest 3s, many of which are quite easy.
At 48.3 3-point attempts per game, Boston is set to crush its own record of 42.5 set last season. They are currently riding high, 10-1 in their last 11 games, a man among boys in the feeble Eastern Conference, and looking to defend a title that saw them become the winningest franchise in NBA history.
The Celtics came to Scotiabank Arena on Tuesday night to face the Raptors, who for a second straight season find themselves among the association’s worst teams, still fifth in the “reverse standings” at 18-40 (although this year it isn’t by accident). When it comes to the 3-ball, the Raptors are even worse, taking and making the second-fewest per game.
So, it was no surprise when the Celtics outshot the Raptors significantly from 3. Boston straight up launched in transition, kicked out to the corners, and maneuvered their way to clean pull-up looks as they flowed from one pick n’ roll/pop to another along the perimeter. They ultimately chucked up 51 attempts to Toronto’s 33, outscoring them 45 to 15 from deep in what ended up as a 111-101 win for the visitors.
“Last game, those 20 that we made, if we did not make four of those and we kept them for tonight, in that scenario we would win the game,” coach Darko Rajakovic jested after the final buzzer. “I thought the quality of those shots was good, just the ball did not go in tonight. We’ve got to be proud of creating, we had 28 assists while shooting 15 percent from the 3-point line. Extremely talented team, we kept them to 45 points in the second half, I thought that they played extremely hard. Really proud of our effort tonight. A lot for us to learn from this and get better.”
The Raptors did do a lot of good in this game, it can be squarely placed in the acceptable losses’ column. And success in the NBA doesn’t strictly live and die by the 3. There are some teams who don’t take a ton of 3s (the Denver Nuggets) or don’t shoot them efficiently (the Houston Rockets) and get along just fine. But it is certainly an important component.
Over the last four seasons, every championship winner has been in the top five in either 3-point frequency or percentage. The bottom-10 of both categories is a veritable who’s who of cellar dwellers. The make-or-miss league cliche doesn’t come from nowhere; hitting shots correlates with success, and teams need to take them to make them.
There is no better illustration of the Raptors math problem than their matchup with the Celtics. It’s David vs. Goliath, but Goliath has a machine gun and David has a musket, so he loses.
Boston’s penchant for taking triples was on display early. The Celtics ran out in transition after a poor pass by Immanuel Quickley was intercepted by Derrick White. Jayson Tatum received the ball streaking down the wing towards the lane, and instead of taking the obvious option – going up strong – he kicked the ball back to White spotting up on the opposite wing where he caught and cashed.
The Raptors used high pick-up points like usual and switched almost everything in an attempt to limit the bombardment and contest as much as possible. Boston got them up regardless.
The 3-point disparity – not by volume, but by efficiency – after the first quarter, was stark. The Celtics made 5-of-11 to the Raptors 0-of-9. RJ Barrett, Ja’Kobe Walter, and Jonathan Mogbo all missed wide-open looks while White, Payton Pritchard, and Jayson Tatum followed the formula – burying bombs out of two-man actions.
It wasn’t until 9:17 of the second quarter that Ochai Agbaji made the Raptors’ first 3.
But Scottie Barnes proceeded to go to work. First with a touch of finesse, making multiple mid-range turnarounds, and then just beasting on dudes, bullying his way to the rack twice for free throws. The variance of the 3-pointer giveth, and it taketh away. The Celtics went cold (0-for-8) during this stretch and suddenly it was a one-possession game.
Some back-and-forth ensued as the Raptors successfully shot over Boston’s zone defence. Gradey Dick nailed a wing triple on a kickout from Jamal Shead, but then Sam Hauser immediately answered from the corner. Shead found another wing shooter – this time Barrett – for an open make. Once again, the Celtics got it back the next possession; this time White sunk one from the top of the floor. Even when Toronto got hot, it wasn’t able to build a lead.
Barnes and Barrett combined to go an exceptional 16-of-20 on 2-point shots, but also went 1-of-10 from 3, spoiling what was otherwise a tremendously efficient night for the duo. Immanuel Quickley also went 0-for-6 after going a scorching 10-of-18 over the Raptors’ last two games, making five 3s for the first time this season and then immediately repeating the feat.
The Raptors have a high-quality shot diet by analytics standards. They’re third in rim frequency and 11th in corner 3-point frequency, the shot equivalents of leafy greens and nutrient-dense whole foods. Alternatively, the Celtics are 28th in rim frequency and 10th in corner frequency.
Sure, they technically take a larger percentage of their shots from the corner than the Raptors. But they take so many 3s. Case in point, the Celtics are first in non-corner 3-point frequency. The Raptors are last.
The Celtics are also first in pull-up 3 attempts. Again, the Raptors are last. There are still eight players averaging more pull-up 3-point attempts than the Raptors do as a team.
“I like all the catch and shoot 3s that we can take,” said Rajakovic when I asked him about the team’s 3-point shot diet before the game. “With Quickley coming back we started having more walk-up 3s and pick n’ roll 3s. I think it’s very important for us to trust each other and to find each other on the 3-point line. This last game is a good example of that. We were able to really attack the paint and from (the) paint to find open people and knock down their shots.”
Quickley has been firing lately. The sharpshooting guard is actually first in the league in pull-up 3-point percentage among players with more than 1.5 attempts per game. But he is the Raptors’ only player with this capability.
Above-the-break and pull-up 3s do both yield lower percentages than catch-and-shoot and corner looks. But in order to increase volume to somewhere remotely close to where the Celtics have, it’s necessary to take a healthy number of more difficult shot types. Teams simply can’t generate that many easy 3s per game. If they could, they would! But they can’t.
In this sense, something our own Samson Folk pointed out about the Raptors and Brandon Ingram can be similarly applied to the Raptors and Celtics.
“The Raptors are a team that takes all the right shots, and makes none of them. And Brandon Ingram is a guy that makes so many of the wrong shots.”
The Celtics also make so many of the wrong shots. While the pull-up above-the break 3s may not be the scourge they once were, they are still not the optimal outcome. That is unless you have the personnel to make them at a passable clip like the Celtics.
Regardless of the single digit lead Boston held for the majority, this game never truly felt in reach for Toronto. While the Raptors have had reminders this season of their past reign as an inevitable team, the Celtics are one. They even ran out a lineup consisting of two G Leaguers – Baylor Scheierman and JD Davison – for a stretch in the third quarter as they coasted to victory. Underpinning that was the predetermined 3-point deficit. When you score an average of 18 more points per game from deep than your opponent, the result is all but written.
Every time the game felt close the Celtics put another 3-point nail in the Raptors’ coffin. Shead blew by Pritchard and finished at the rim, making it a single-digit lead once again in the fourth. The building came alive with the sound of anticipation.
White followed with yet another well-timed trey.
The constant barrage was deflating. Even on the Celtics’ last halfcourt possession of the game, White and Pritchard weaseled their way around the Raptors defence until a suitable 3 was created.
Toronto doesn’t need to take a million 3s every game like Boston. Taking a more selective and higher quality shot diet can work, but they need to make them. The Raptors haven’t this season, and they didn’t against the Celtics on Tuesday.
