Men and women are said to lie. Numbers are known for being honest, but they don’t always tell the truth early in an NBA season, when small sample sizes can be misleading.
Despite the dangers of reacting to early-season trends, I tried to cut through the noise to find eight of the most important stats from the Celtics’ first eight games. The Celtics improved to 7-1 with Monday night’s 123-93 win at Atlanta.
13.3: Jayson Tatum’s first-quarter scoring average
Over the years, Jaylen Brown has often been the Celtics’ most aggressive player early in games. He has often thrown their first punch.
The first quarter has become Tatum’s time. Unlike in previous seasons, the coaching staff has typically asked him to play the entire quarter. He has rewarded that change by averaging 13.3 points per first quarter so far. Across the NBA, only Paolo Banchero (10.4) and Anthony Edwards (10.1) have joined Tatum in double figures in first-quarter scoring average.
Tatum has sought early haymakers like a young Mike Tyson. And Tatum is landing most of his blows, shooting 60.3 percent on his first-quarter field goal attempts, including 47.1 percent on his 3-point tries. How hot has he been early in games? He has averaged two 3-point makes per first quarter. With him playing all but three first-quarter minutes so far, the Celtics have crushed opponents by 30.8 points per 100 possessions in the first.
Tatum leads the Celtics in points, rebounds, assists and steals. He’s expected to help them across the board, but the way he has taken over at the start of games is new.
Minus-3.0: Net rating without Derrick White
Other factors helped the Celtics rise last season, but the decision to give White more responsibilities ranked high on the list of reasons why they took the final step to a championship. They’re just better when he’s on the court.
White does everything. He can fit with anybody. He has become a knockdown shooter. He can run the offense or handle any off-ball role. On defense, he never stops pursuing the play, even when it looks like he’s beaten. The Celtics have a long list of great players to lean on when he heads to the bench but have still cratered without him on the court. Over 125 minutes, lineups without him have a minus-3.0 net rating so far, which means Boston has played like the Detroit Pistons whenever White sits down.
D-White always on time ⏰ pic.twitter.com/M4AytV5AhF
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) November 5, 2024
On-off stats are impacted by a lot of noise, especially early in the season. The Celtics’ ugly performances in garbage time have increased the damage without White. He’s not responsible for all of the good things that have happened when he’s on the court, just like his absence is not responsible for all of the mistakes the team has made without him. Still, the on-off numbers underscore White’s importance to the team, as they have since he joined the Celtics at the 2022 trade deadline. Boston has been 23.9 points per 100 possessions better with the guard on the court over the first eight games. Averaging 19.9 points per game, White has upped his production after a career year. Like several of his teammates, he appears even more comfortable from behind the arc.
50.9: 3-point attempts per game
Based on 3-point percentage, the Celtics had a rough outside shooting performance Monday night against the Hawks. They still drilled 18 3-pointers, more than any team has ever averaged in a season. Through eight games, Boston is on pace to shatter the old record by averaging 19 3-point makes per game.
Kristaps Porziņģis, one of the NBA’s best stretch big men, hasn’t played yet. Sam Hauser, one of the league’s top shooters, has missed three games. The Celtics have used double-big lineups a fair amount of the time, with at least one non-shooter on the court. None of that has stopped them from producing eight more 3-point attempts per game than they did last season. They have harnessed the power of the 3-point arc like no team before them.
The Celtics have made 55 more 3-pointers than their opponents to date. They are outscoring opponents from behind the line by an average of 20.6 points per game. Given the importance of the 3-point shot in today’s game, they have provided themselves with an enormous margin for error elsewhere.
9.3: Average Payton Pritchard 3-point attempts
Several Celtics regulars have dialed up their 3-point volume this season. Tatum, after a summer of debate over his broken jump shot, ended Monday within a whisker of leading the league in attempts. Even so, nobody in the Boston rotation has taken the green light more seriously than Pritchard.
Pritchard has nearly doubled his 3-point attempts per game. Without a single start, he has fired up more 3-point attempts per game than Stephen Curry. Pritchard has made more than Curry, too, while playing like an early favorite for the Sixth Man of the Year award.
Will Pritchard continue his torrid 43.2-percent pace? Probably not. If he does so at his current volume, it would go down as one of the best shooting seasons ever. Even if his accuracy slides, his willingness to hunt 3-pointers will stress opposing defenses to their breaking point on certain nights. It’s a skill just to take as many triples as Pritchard has, never mind to make them as consistently as he has. Only five players in NBA history have averaged at least four 3-point makes per game throughout a single season (Curry, Damian Lillard, James Harden and Luka Doncic have all done it multiple times). Pritchard and Tatum are on pace to join that group.
Minus-23.4: Net rating of Luke Kornet-Xavier Tillman lineups
On their own, Kornet and Tillman can each help the Celtics, though the latter big man has lost some minutes to Neemias Queta lately. Together, Kornet and Tillman simply fit strangely.
It wasn’t crazy for Joe Mazzulla to try the combination during Hauser’s three-game absence early in the season; the Celtics have more established depth at the big man spots than on the perimeter. Still, a Kornet-Tillman duo might just be too clunky in 2024.
Mazzulla said the Celtics’ defensive system is “a little bit tricky when it comes to the double-big units.” It has certainly looked that way so far during the minutes with Kornet and Tillman. Some of their playing time together has come with big leads, perhaps leading to less focused play, but lineups with both of the backup big men have been crushed so far with a minus-23.4 net rating over 26 minutes. Such a tiny sample size can be misleading, but Mazzulla steered away from the look, perhaps because he’d seen enough to evaluate it. He began to use Jordan Walsh in the rotation before Hauser returned and has stuck with Walsh since. The second-year pro crashes the glass and defends with enthusiasm, but still needs to show he can knock down shots and consistently impact games. If he can, that would give the Celtics needed perimeter depth at the end of the rotation.
Their lineups including two backup centers probably aren’t the wisest idea. Supersized basketball can thrive when the frontcourt involves Al Horford and/or Porziņģis. The Horford-Kornet and Horford-Queta duos have worked so far for the Celtics, but it’s obvious why the Kornet-Tillman lineups have disappeared already.
55 percent: Brown’s finishing at the rim
Jaylen Brown’s efficiency flew into a new stratosphere during the playoffs last season. While becoming the Eastern Conference Finals MVP and the Finals MVP, he shot at least 50 percent from the field during 14 of the Celtics’ 19 postseason games. Despite unusually cold 3-point shooting, his true shooting percentage from the Celtics’ championship run (59.1) eclipsed that from every regular season during his career. He shot 60.7 percent on 2-point attempts, a beyond impressive feat given the difficulty of such tries.
He’s shooting 55 percent now at the rim, according to Cleaning the Glass. That would be the worst mark of his career. It would represent a substantial dip after he shot 67 percent on such attempts last season. And it could be largely due to a hip injury, which has sidelined him over the past two games. The issue impacted Brown for several games before he eventually sat out for rest. He hinted that it limited him during a loss to the Pacers, saying that he didn’t feel like his legs were underneath him during that game.
Brown’s 2-point shooting (47.1 percent) would be the worst of his career. He has only made 12 of 45 3-point attempts (26.7 percent) over his six games played. His numbers suggest the hip has hurt his efficiency. The tape suggests he hasn’t had his normal explosiveness and burst. He should bounce back once the hip starts feeling right again, but he hasn’t finished like himself so far.
15.5: Opposing turnover rate
Don’t look now, but the Celtics, who haven’t forced many turnovers under Mazzulla, rank seventh in opposing turnover rate. They also rank ninth in steals per game, one reason why they have played offense in transition with far more frequency so far.
31.6: Percent of opposing shots within 4 feet
The Celtics ranked second last season in the percentage of shots allowed within 4 feet of the basket, according to Cleaning the Glass. Entering Monday night, they had slipped to 12th place in the same category. They haven’t protected the rim as well.
Porziņģis should help there. Though the Celtics jumped from 13th to fifth in defensive rating after Monday’s blowout of Atlanta, their defense hasn’t always operated at fever pitch. That could be partly due to the amount of big leads they’ve had. Human nature often convinces teams to relax while ahead. Still, whenever Porziņģis returns, the Celtics will have room to improve.
(Top photo of Jayson Tatum: Todd Kirkland / Getty Images)
