Three Things NBA Preview: Boston Celtics

As I detailed a couple weeks ago, I’m once again re-appropriating the Three Things I Noticed on League Pass format to preview the upcoming season. Instead of three things I noticed, it’ll be something more along the lines of three things I’m looking forward to, interested in, or want to see. Some of them might be narrative-based, some might be stats, and some might include video. But they'll all be focused on the 2025-26 campaign.

The schedule for those posts will be as follows:

• Sept. 1-5: Atlantic Division (BOS, BKN, NYK, PHI, TOR)
• Sept. 8-12: Central Division (CHI, CLE, DET, IND, MIL)
• Sept. 15-19: Southeast Division (ATL, CHA, MIA, ORL, WAS)
• Sept. 22-26: Pacific Division (GSW, LAC, LAL, PHX, SAC)
• Sept. 29-Oct. 3: Northwest Division (DEN, MIN, OKC, POR, UTA)
• Oct. 6-10: Southwest Division (DAL, HOU, MEM, NOP, SAS)

So without further ado, let's get to the Boston Celtics, who last year saw their season surprisingly ended by the New York Knicks in the second round of the playoffs.

Pritchard and White, scaling up

Let's be real: Boston will not have Jayson Tatum this season and the scoring and creation has to come from somewhere else.

Jaylen Brown will be counted on to do more, obviously, and Anfernee Simons should be expected to pick up some slack as well. But for the Celtics to be at their best, I don't think they can just shunt all of Tatum's offensive responsibility onto those two guys. I think it needs to be a more utilitarian distribution, with Payton Pritchard and Derrick White stepping up their respective usage rates from the 19-20% ranges into the 22-23% range to help offset some of what they're losing without Tatum.

They're going to need to do more with the ball in their hands than ever before.

Let's just take pick and rolls as an example. Last season, Pritchard was one of the most effective high-volume pick-and-roll ball-handlers in the league. Boston scored 1.221 points per possession on trips that included a Pritchard ball screen, per GeniusIQ tracking, a mark that ranked ninth-best out of the 96 players who ran 500 pick and rolls or more.

In 2024 he ranked third (1.273) out of 101 players in the same metric, while Derrick White (1.243) ranked fifth. Over the two seasons combined, Pritchard checked in third out of 169 players with 500 or more picks, while White ranked 13th.

In terms of pick-and-roll volume, though, they were much further down the list. Pritchard received 21.9 ball screens per 100 possessions across those two seasons, which checked in 91st among that latter group of 169 players. White's 24.6 picks ranked 81st. Without Tatum, who ran 27.8 pick and rolls per 100 (or around 20 per game) across those two seasons, these two players are going to have to scale up their work significantly.

The Celtics could of course run less pick and roll, but they were already one of the lower-volume teams in the league in terms of the share of their offense taken up by ball screens. There's not too much more that they can shift away without fundamentally changing everything about their offense. (Which, of course, one could argue is necessary without the centrifugal force around which it orbits, but is still tough to see happening — especially if they hold out any hope that Tatum returns some time late in the season.) They might have to dramatically cut down their reliance on isolation plays without Tatum, though, which they can do because they were one of the highest-volume iso teams.

But even doing that likely means more work for guys like Pritchard and White, who will be coming off screens and dribble hand-offs more often than in the past. (That's true of Brown and Simons as well, but they're already used to handling higher usage rates.) Whether they can maintain their efficiency on that increase in volume will go a long way toward determining Boston's offensive floor and ceiling.

A record, quickly broken?

Last season, the Celtics shattered the NBA record for three-point attempt rate, becoming just the fourth team in NBA history to take a greater share of their shots from outside the arc, than inside it.

They've taken threes on at least 47.1% of their shots in each season of the Joe Mazzulla era, putting them in company with only the Mike D'Antoni Rockets in terms of teams that have done that three times in a row. (Or three times at all.)

I think it's entirely possible that the Celtics break their own record this season. With Jayson Tatum out for the year, it looks to me like the Celtics' plan is to jack an absolute ton of treys, driving up the variance of their games now that they are likely to be at a talent deficit for the first time in recent memory.

Look at the players they acquired this offseason, and how often they take threes. Anfernee Simons takes 8.8 threes per 36 minutes for his career, and they account for 52.9% of his shot attempts. Luka Garza takes 5.8 threes per 36 for his career, a monster number for a center. Chris Boucher takes 5.5 per 36. Even Josh Minott takes 4.6 of them per 36. Collectively, threes account for around 37% of those guys career shot attempts, and they're all big men.

Throw in more minutes for guys like Pritchard (8.5 per 36, 65.2% of his shots), Sam Hauser (9.5 per 36, 84.1% of his attempts), Baylor Scheierman, (7.7 per 36, 82 of his 110 shot attempts as rookie), and Jordan Walsh (4.7 per 36, 65 of his 98 career shots), and you're looking at a potentially significant bump in this category. I think it's possible that Boston pushes to 55% of its shot attempts or more.

That said, I think the Celtics will convert these shots at a much lower rate, and that they'll be attempts of lower quality than those they've gotten used to. (And they were already only 18th in three-point shot quality, per GeniusIQ, during the Mazzulla era.) The best threes are created off drive-and-kick and swing-swing situations, and they won't be able to do that kind of stuff as well this year as in years past. Without Tatum, I think a greater share of their treys are likely to be contested and/or off the dribble from guys like Jaylen Brown, Derrick White, and Pritchard, and those obviously carry lower expected and actual conversion rates than the spot-ups created by guys who can leverage a defense like Tatum can.

Centers, (worthy) of attention

As ESPN's Zack Kram noted, the Celtics gave 99.5% of their non-garbage time minutes at center during the playoffs to Al Horford, Kristaps Porzingis, and Luke Kornet.

Assuming Horford signs with another team, as expected (when is that Warriors deal going to actually happen, anyway?), then none of those three guys will be back next season. Instead, it'll be the aforementioned Garza and Boucher, plus Neemias Queta and Xavier Tillman Sr. duking it out for those minutes.These are all very different kinds of players, and even body types.

Garza is 6-10, 235 pounds. Boucher is 6-9, 200. Tillman is 6-8, 245. And Queta is 7-0, 245. That's a lot of variety in terms of what your center looks like on the court.

Garza and especially Boucher will step outside the paint and shoot. (Garza still does more of his work inside.) Tillman occasionally will as well, but he's not very good at it. Queta basically stays near the rim.

Garza is basically a zero as a rim protector. (And that's being kind.) Boucher blocks shots but can get bullied. Tillman is too short (and short-armed) to really protect the basket but moves his feet well in space. Queta has shown flashes of rim protection but we don't know how real it is because the sample is minuscule (297 shot attempts within five feet of both Queta and the rim, per NBA Advanced Stats).

I'm fascinated to see how Joe Mazzulla doles out these minutes, and who plays in what situations. I get the feeling that Queta will start because they have seemed to like him over the last couple years, but Kornet is basically the only guy that Mazzulla has been willing to put on the court, who doesn't stretch the floor at all. Will he be willing to play with one of those guys for big minutes now? Or will he turn to one of the other centers who at least occasionally steps outside of the paint? And if he does, then how will Boston maintain its defensive identity?