How the Celtics’ Offense is Humming

The Boston Celtics only have a 113.9 offensive rating in the finals, yet they’ve been getting whatever they wanted and their process everywhere on offense is too good.

They’ve been able to put the Dallas Mavericks into rotation constantly. They exploited weaker defenders, hunted matchups well, got their offense quickly, moved around matchups to maximise spacing and eliminate rim protection, and haven’t been settling.

This has been a fun offense to watch, despite the actual numbers not showing it to be that elite.

So, let’s go through how exactly the Celtics’ offense has been humming!

The first thing this starts with is rim pressure. This is the biggest reason for their offense and it works so well because of so many reasons.

So far, they’re 35/42 within 4ft. That’s 83%! They are eating at the rim and there’s no one there to stop them(and that’s perfectly planned).

Here are the rim stats by player:

• Jayson Tatum: 7/13
• Jaylen Brown: 10/10
• Jrue Holiday: 10/10
• Derrick White/Al Horford/Kristaps Porzingis: 7/8

A lot of it is with them getting early looks at the rim. Whether that’s outlets to open guys at the rim, in transition, or attacking cross matches early in the possession. That’s why they’re 10/12 on 2pt shots within the first four seconds:

This is definitely one of the easiest ways to get the offense going. The Celtics have scored 26 points on 16 possessions started off a steal! That’s 1.6 points per possession. That’s one way for certain to get easy points.

When it comes to in the half-court, that has been just as easy. There are a few things involved.

First, it’s the point of attack defense. That’s where they’ve been able to get whatever matchup they wanted to attack seamlessly. That mainly starts with hunting Luka Doncic, Kyrie Irving, or getting any of the bigs on the perimeter. That’s where everyone on the Celtics has been able to attack with ease.

When the point of attack is so bad, everything else breaks down just as easily. This is only made worse by how the Celtics are spaced out or how they manipulate the defense to make it even easier to attack.

They will have Dereck Lively and Daniel Gafford out of the paint either in the deep corners to make their rotations even longer. They will have weakside actions to occupy the defender. They will make sure that it’s either Irving or Doncic being the ones to make the rotations. That’s why you’ll see the Celtics have the dunker spot filled with guards.

It’s all of that combined that makes the attacks to the rim very easy, eliminating or making the initial rotation less effective, and makes it more likely that there will be another rotation needed.

Which brings us to the offense after that first rotation. That’s when the fun begins. That’s where the Celtics ball movement and player movement is all so fun and effective. There’s a reason why the Celtics are shooting 60% from 2pt and it’s because these rotations are hard to defend and it results in more good looks at the rim.

Or it forces kick outs and the Celtics get wide open 3s. That’s where the numbers say they haven’t been an elite offense because they’ve been missing their 3s… but it’s only missing their above the break 3s. When it comes to the corners, 15% of their shots are there and are shooting 42%!

Fortunately for the Celtics, the offense doesn’t stop there. They still have other options and are able to constantly draw attention everywhere they go.

There’s this cheat code with Kristaps Porzingis:

If the Mavericks want to switch the PNRs and end up having anyone that’s small on him, it’s feeding him around the high post area and he goes to work. It’s that simple and so effective. They haven’t found an answer for that at all.

Finally, despite the poor scoring, Tatum has been drawing so much attention and has been attacking constantly, putting the defense in rotation at will, and whenever he holds the ball inside the arc, the defense is coming to help, overload the strong side, or sending doubles

This is where the Celtics can just hurt them in so many different ways. Even if Tatum isn’t getting right to the rim or scoring himself, he’s still forcing the defense to constantly react and overhelp.

The Celtics’ offense has simply been too much for the Mavericks defense to handle and so far through two games, I haven’t seen much of an answer.

And I think that’s because the way they do it is that they do it in such a simple way but have all of the counters and additions making that simple thing even more effective.

The Mavericks defense was doing a great job before the finals and the Celtics just picked that all apart with elite strategy, scheme and executed it as well as anyone could.