if the threes drop at 40% or whtaever it's a blowout, and if 30% it's tight but they can still win.
This is only a side point, but it's something we've referenced a few times so I wanted to look up the data.
Celtics record by game-specific 3-point-percentage quintiles:
.318 and under: 7-5 (includes losses v DEN, @ IND #1, @ GSW, @ MIN, @ MIL, @ LAC, @ ORL*)
.319 to .358: 9-3 (includes losses v LAL, @ CHO, @ PHI)
.360 to .404: 11-1 (includes loss @ OKC, shooting .375)
.405 to .472: 12-0
Over .472: 11-1 (including loss @ IND #2, 131-133, but also including our 3 50-point wins)
Our opponents' best 3-point shooting game of the season, home vs the Lakers, they shot 19 for 36 (.528) and we lost by 9. Both games in Indy, they shot 19 for 40 (.475) and we lost by 10 and by 2. But we've won 2 of our opponents' 5 best 3-point-shooting games: Game #2 vs MIA (they shot .485, we shot .410 and we won by 8), and @ SAC (they shot .477 and it didn't matter because we shot .524, 22 for 42, and won by
25!). But of our opponents' best-20% shooting games, we have unsurprisingly only gone 7-5 in those games. So even when opponents shoot the lights out, they win less than half the time, and when they win it's only by a little.
Meanwhile, our two worst 3-point-shooting nights of the season include one win (vs PHI a few nights ago, made 5 of 22 for .227 but won by
eighteen) and one bad loss (@ORL for the IST, shot 7 for 29 and lost by 17). Those were also the two lowest VOLUME 3-point games of our season. Scanning the ranked list of our games by 3-point-shooting volume, there doesn't appear to be any correlation, the losses are pretty much spaced evenly throughout the list. So we're good about taking what the opponent is giving us, and shooting it when it's the right shot. On nights when it doesn't fall, we might lose, but we can still find a way to win most of the time.
That line separating the bottom 2 quintiles, right around .360... below it we're 16-8, .667 W% (itself a record topped only by the west's top-3, OKC MIN and DEN), but above that line, we're 34-2, effectively invincible. That .360 line for us is equal to the 18th-best-3-shooting team in the league, Detroit. If we shoot as good or better than the Detroit Pistons, we basically cannot be beaten.
(n.b. the Celtics take, and make, the most 3-pointers in the league. They are 4th in 3P%, at .386, very slightly behind LAC and MIN at .389 and a bit more behind #1 OKC at .395)