Robb: Celtics' Shooting Woes Loom Large Heading Into Offseason
By Brian Robb, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- When the Boston Celtics were swept out of the postseason just over a year ago, the team's fatal flaw was a lack of shooting. The Cavs honed in on containing Isaiah Thomas with long defenders, leaving Boston's offense reliant on outside shooters who only hit 25 percent of their 3-point attempts in that series.
Thursday night's season-ending loss to the Atlanta Hawks in Game 6 showed an eerily similar losing formula for Boston. The Hawks put all of their defensive focus on Thomas, leaving the door open for the remainder of the Celtics shooters to make them pay from the outside.
Once again, Boston failed to deliver on those opportunities. The team shot 38.4 percent from the field and 27.5 percent from 3-point range over six games, capped by one of Boston's worst shooting performances of the year in a 104-92 loss in Game 6.
Out of 16 NBA playoff teams, the Celtics had the worst shooting performance of the first round.
"I think it put a lot of pressure on us," Stevens said of the team's poor shooting. "To, you know, then play from behind in this case, or whatever the case may be, and then try to hit home runs and as a result you have some haphazard possessions and those lead to points. But it's part of it, and you have to continue to do your best to defend on each possession regardless if shots are falling or if the offense is flowing. And I give our guys credit in that regard, especially as they continued to play through the fourth quarter. But we've got to get a lot better, I mean, it's pretty evident. And we knew that, but that's that."
While the Celtics were shorthanded in the series with Avery Bradley (hamstring) sidelined and Kelly Olynyk (shoulder) ineffective, Stevens put the onus on himself for the team's inability to execute offensively.
"As a coach you've got to think about what can you do better to help them get better looks," Stevens said. "Or what can I do better to help put us in a better position, so that if a run is at eight, it doesn't go to 12. You don't lose sleep over the open shots you get; you lose sleep over the possessions where you don't.
"And, hey, there's guys that missed a few shots but I wasn't perfect either. So I'm not going to – I'm not going to lay blame on the shooting by any means. Certainly it was a factor in the series. Certainly it allowed their defense to collapse and certainly pay attention to Isaiah. But I still believe in these guys, and I'm thankful for all the shots they made throughout the season that allowed us to get here."
Stevens can deflect all he wants, but the bottom line here is that at less than full strength, Boston did not have the firepower to compete against an elite Atlanta defense. The Celtics were 27th in the NBA in 3-point accuracy in the regular season, so taking two of the team's above-average shooters (Bradley and Olynyk) out of the equation was too much of a hurdle for this group to overcome.
"We mixed and matched with the lineups a little bit," Evan Turned explained. "We had a lot of guys out there doing things for the first time, gaining experience. That's not an excuse or anything. We still had opportunity to compete, it just didn't work out our way."
"I just think we didn't come up to our standards," Jonas Jerebko added. "Our ball movement wasn't what it was supposed to be. We didn't really take advantage of our open shots. They did. They played well. They moved the ball and played like a unit. They were tough to beat today and all credit to Atlanta."
With a long list of assets and salary cap space at his disposal, look for Danny Ainge to learn his lesson from the past two postseasons and make offense the team's top priority in what should be an eventful offseason.
Brian Robb covers the Celtics for CBS Boston and contributes to NBA.com, among other media outlets. You can follow him on Twitter @CelticsHub.