To be clear, the risk with regard to another team having lots of shooters isn't that they will take Porzingis off the dribble on the perimeter, but rather that Porzingis can't keep himself just on the edge of the paint as a default position (to help on drives) and then recover with a single step if it's kicked to his guy. He can contest shots plenty well, and stay with a driving guard decently enough (mostly because he can block from behind).I've been banging the drum since before the trade deadline about number one above---that to me is far and away the biggest threat. Fortunately, there's only a couple guys in the league who fit that description and one of them (Embiid) both struggles against Cetlics/Horford and is highly likely to be well below 100% this playoffs. It's really Jokic and Giannis here.
I don't think 5 shooters is speifically a risk, or related to Porzingis. Obviously, if someone is hitting 40-50% of threes at volume that's an issue but I do not think Porzingis' defenisvely is any weak point against that (I get he's limited on perimeter, but there isn't a team that can realistically put five out there with this thread and also defend him at other end). So that one, to me, isn't a real threat.
I think the other big risk is related but distinct---rebounding/bullyball. We've seen Celtics have problems with physicality - the Minnesota game, and to a degree (not in terms of rebouding, but in terms of physiicality on drives) the first OKC game. Tillman helps some here, but is only going to play so much. They are solid rebounding wise everywhere, but there's no great rebounder on the team - they gang-rebound well, Tatum is sneakily good as is Jrue, but they don't have a beast. Teams that play two bigs and/or a big and a widebody can get enough offensive rebounds to be an issue. We saw this a bit with Atlanta. I don't think there's an obvious team save possibly Minnesota who can do this in their natural rotation, but someone might try to go bigger to win the possession game. Celtics aren't huge physically---though they are solid-average. Miami scares me just a little on physicality. The challenge of a bigger team defending the other way is the Celtics reponse.
Other than those two - a big post player blwoing up the defense, and bigs on the boards or physically giving them trouble - the Celtics losses are in four categories that are all kind of flukey/unlikely: they shoot 25% or less on threes (will happen a couple times in playoffs for sure, but not super likely to happen 4-5 times in a series); the other team shoots a Martin-like +50% on threes (will happen, unlikely to happen 4-5 times); they don't play focused (possibly, but a lot less likely in playoffs than in Atlanta in March); and someone out-switches them...which I think only Clippers have the guys to do.
As to rebounding, @SteveF had some good stats on how we rank in the advanced rebounding metrics he's looking at, perhaps he can refresh that. My recollection is that we're "fine", not great but that it's not some particular weakness. Plus, you need very specific personnel to exploit it, and picking up an Andre Drummond comes with limitations elsewhere that can make the move a net negative.
Cleaning The Glass has some basic team stats available:
- On offense, at 27.3%, the Celtics are slightly better than average (#12) at getting rebounds.
- On defense, at 25.8%, the Celtics are 75th-percentile (#7) at preventing offensive rebounds. This stands in opposition to your worry.
- Among top-10 teams, those better at getting ORBs than us include Denver (#6), the Knicks (#1) and Phoenix (#7). Most of the league's best offensive rebounding teams (Utah, Golden State, Portland) are not among the best teams in the league.
- The one thing they pick out that we are decisively bad at is generating turnovers on defense. Yes, we can all think of times Jaylen has jumped a passing route and gone the other way for an instant dunk. But rate-wise, we generate turnovers on 12.1% of defensive possessions (league-average: 13.6%), which is 28th / 30 in the league. We are, however, equally good at not turning it over on offense (12.0%, #2).
- Top-10 teams who are very good at generating turnovers on defense include OKC (#1, 15.7%, as we saw last night), Orlando (#2, 15.5%), and Minnesota (#6, 14.5%). Miami's #7 but I'm not worried about it the way I've been in past years. Among the only teams worse than us are Milwaukee, who at 11.8% are #30, dead last in the league.
- Meanwhile, we are the #1 defensive team by a wide, wide margin at something else also very important: preventing FT attempts. We concede 14.5 FTs made per 100 opponent FGA, with league average being 19.3. Only one other team (the Lakers) is even below 17.1, and teams like OKC are way behind (20.6 FTs / 100 FGA, #24 in the league - which makes the FT parade last night kinda ironic). Denver is 17th, basically league average at this.
If someone has done some film breakdown that shows how we're conceding offensive rebounds that better tactics / coaching would have prevented, I haven't seen it. I've probably seen a few failures to box out, where we let someone come straight down the lane for a putback - but honestly, those are pretty rare, and every team has their slip-ups.
I do agree about the Clippers' personnel being a unique problem. If they get through a playoff series healthy and we start seeing them really exploit their depth and two-way versatility (And how deadly they are in transition), maybe we'll need to talk a bit more about them specifically. Other than Denver, I think they're perhaps the second-worst matchup for us.
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