The Celtics, 7-7 in their last 14 games, have looked far from dominant for the last month
The Boston Celtics‘ title defense hit a new low on Saturday night when they collapsed in the final seconds of regulation and eventually lost to the Atlanta Hawks in overtime. With that result, the Celtics are now 7-7 over their last 14 games and have fallen 6.5 games behind the Cleveland Cavaliers for the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference.
While the Celtics, now 29-13 and in second place in the East, remain one of the favorites to win it all, the last month or so has been the worst they’ve played for an extended stretch since the start of last season. No one in Boston is panicking yet. In fact, Joe Mazzulla said after the loss to the Hawks that he is “actually more excited at this juncture of the season than I was at the beginning.”
Still, ahead of their national TV matchup with the Golden State Warriors on Monday (5 p.m. ET on TNT), it’s worth taking a closer look at why the defending champs have struggled lately, and whether any of those issues are cause for long-term concern.
1. Poor 3-point shooting
The Celtics are synonymous with 3-pointers at this point, and they started the season by tying the NBA record for made 3s in a game with 29 in a blowout win over the New York Knicks. They’ve had a few other huge nights from beyond the arc, but have often struggled to find the shooting success that sustained them on their run to the title. While they still lead the league in attempts per game by a wide margin at 49.1, they’ve made just 36.2% of them, which ranks 16th.
During this skid, the shooting has been even more wayward. Their 35.3% clip from 3-point range over the last 14 games is 22nd in the league. In six of those games they shot under 30%; in the entirety of the 2023-24 season they had 12 such outings.
For the most part they’re still creating good looks, but for one reason or another they’re not going down. Let’s compare their shooting on open (closest defender four-to-six feet away) and wide open (closest defender six-plus feet away) shots during the last 14 games to the whole of last season.
2023-24 season
| Shot type | 3FGA | League rank | 3FG% | League rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Open |
17.4 |
1st |
38.8 |
1st |
|
Wide open |
19.4 |
7th |
41.6 |
1st |
Over last 14 games
| Shot type | 3FGA | League rank | 3FG% | League rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Open |
17.7 |
4th |
33.9 |
15th |
|
Wide open |
19.6 |
10th |
39.1 |
14th |
As you can see, they’re creating almost an identical number of open and wide open 3s, but they’ve been ice cold lately, particularly on open looks. You would expect that to change at some point, but even if they eventually snap out of this slump, there’s no guarantee that they return to last season’s form. And that could be an issue come playoff time given how much they rely on the 3-pointer.
2. Failing in the fourth quarter
There have been concerns about the Celtics’ play late in games dating back years, but they seemed to put the issue behind them last season when they had the sixth-best winning percentage (.636) in clutch games — score within five points with five or fewer minutes remaining — during the regular season and went a perfect 6-0 in them during the playoffs.
Recently, however, they’ve had some major issues in the fourth quarter. Dating back to Dec. 23, when this poor run of form started, they have a minus-3.0 net rating in the fourth and are shooting 45% from the field in the final frame, marks which rank 18th and 20th in the league, respectively.
The fourth-quarter issues have been varied. There have been instances, such as their loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Jan. 5 when they shot 3 of 18 and were outscored by 17 points, where the entire frame was a mess. On other occasions, most recently the disaster against the Hawks, they’ve melted down right near the end. In that one, they had the ball and a three-point lead with 20 seconds left and managed to lose after a series of errors.
“I’ve had stretches or whatever, tough spurts throughout my NBA career,” Tatum said after the loss to the Hawks. “They all present their different challenges. You’re just at a different point in your career and your life. … We’re just trying to figure out how to win and things like that. But it just goes to show it’s hard to win an NBA game. Each night it’s tough and you’ve got to bring it every single night.”
Even with their recent woes, the Celtics are 12-8 in clutch games this season, a .600 winning percentage that’s nearly right in line with last season. They haven’t suddenly forgotten how to win, but they do need to do a better job maintaining their focus for a full 48 minutes. On that note…
3. A championship hangover
The Celtics appear to have fallen victim to the dreaded championship hangover during this slump. The night-to-night intensity and effort that fueled their 64-win campaign last season has gone missing.
“It’s not a long-term effort thing, but in the short term, yeah,” Mazzulla said after the Celtics were run out of the gym by the Sacramento Kings in the fourth quarter back on Jan. 10. “I think our inefficient offense put pressure on our defense, and they were able to take advantage of that with effort plays, whether it was offensive rebounding, open threes. You’re coming down missing them and they’re coming down making them, it’s going to take a toll on you.”
A few days later, Kristaps Porzingis called out himself and his teammates following a shock defeat to the tanking Toronto Raptors, who dominated the fourth quarter en route to a comfortable win.
“I thought we had no spirit, with no personality today as a team,” Porzingis said. “It’s weird to say. We have high character people but things are not going our way. We’re a step slow here, there. Just no spirit, no personality.”
Stretches like this in the middle of the season are common for a team trying to defend its title. The Celtics were playing until mid-June last season, had three key players spend all summer in Paris with Team USA at the Olympics, then opened training camp early on Sept. 25 before heading to Abu Dhabi for a pair of preseason games against the Denver Nuggets.
If all goes to plan, they have another five months of basketball remaining this season, so it’s no surprise that they’ve tried to coast for a while. And they probably could have gotten away with it if they hadn’t stopped making 3s at the same time.
4. Disappearing D-White
It’s important to state that the Celtics’ downturn is not the fault of any one player. They’ve all had poor performances and made mistakes over this 14-game stretch. So then why single out Derrick White?
For one, White’s had a particularly tough time. He’s appeared in 13 of the 14 games and has averaged 12.5 points on 41.4% shooting from the field, including 33.6% on 3-point tries, 3.3 rebounds, 2.9 assists and two turnovers. His outside shooting has fallen off a cliff, and he hasn’t been nearly as impactful in other areas of the game.
After returning from a one-game absence against the Denver Nuggets on Jan. 7 due to an illness, White scored in single figures for three consecutive games and went 1 of 18 from behind the arc along the way. Since Dec. 23, the Celtics have been plus-5.3 points per 100 possessions better with White off the court
Furthermore, White’s emergence as a borderline All-Star last season was one of the primary reasons the Celtics went from a very good team to an unstoppable one. In addition to his stellar defense, he shot a career-high 39.6% from 3-point range and offered the Celtics a third reliable on-ball creator behind Tatum and Jaylen Brown. There were stretches and full games, even in the playoffs, where he could carry the offense if one of those two was struggling.
When White isn’t at his best, neither are the Celtics. Once he snaps out of this funk, they should quickly resume their winning ways.
