The Boston team hasn’t been shooting as well as they did during the first month of the 2024-25 season, and their precision has only been plummeting from beyond the arc ever since. This is why coach Joe Mazzulla has admitted that his squad isn’t playing well and hope to show another face after the All-Star break.
Starting off in October, the reigning champion dropped in 40.7% from threes, then 36.7% the next month, a 35.4% in December, finally followed by a poor 33.8% during January, which would rank near the bottom of the NBA this campaign.
Now the Celtics have lost 10 times since mid-December, shooting 30% or worse from at least seven of those matches, and underscoring in general. “We’re playing inconsistent basketball,” said the Boston tactician, who isn’t worried about how many threes are sunk, but the quality of those attempts.
Joe Mazzulla on the Celtics’ ability to “lock in” and stay focused right after the break:
“If there's a group of people that I trust, it's the guys in the locker room to continue to get better and focus on the things that are important to winning.” pic.twitter.com/DPj48Mjse1
— Daniel Donabedian (@danield1214) February 21, 2025
Kristaps Porzingis also believes they have to be smart about which shots they take. “If we’re not making shots, it starts to wear on us a little bit. And then we have 5 percent or 10 percent less effort on defense. Somebody takes a bad shot, or I take a rushed shot or whatever.
“We just have to be mindful of those moments,” the Latvian big man said about the team’s strategy. “But still [we need to] shoot the ball, because we’re a great shooting team. We just have to be smart about it.”
Nevertheless, the Celtics have played better against elite defences, having posted the league’s second-best efficiency against top-10 defensive units, trailing only behind Cleveland in the category.
“You’ve got to take the good with the bad and understand that, down the road, we could be grateful for this stretch,” Jayson Tatum said last month. “[We’re missing] shots we normally shoot at a higher rate that would stop the bleeding in this stretch. We’re still trying to generate the right shot and get guys in the right spots. We’re just not shooting the ball as well as we normally do.”
