Did the Celtics Settle For Too Many 3s in Game 1? A Look at the Film

BOSTON — Game 1 of Celtics-Knicks featured one of the slowest paces imaginable, bogged down further by 41 foul calls. Karl-Anthony Towns hit foul trouble early. Kristaps Porziņģis missed his first four shots, exited the game in the second quarter and did not return. Sam Hauser fell injured four minutes into his stint after not playing in the first half. Luke Kornet ran into his own foul trouble by sending Mitchell Robinson to the line. There was a lot going on.

No single takeaway from the 108-105 Knicks overtime stunner drew more attention than the Celtics’ 60 three-point attempts. Boston attempted 19 of its 20 shots in the third quarter from deep, though seven fell and they ended the quarter ahead by seven points. The makes disappeared into the fourth, where Jayson Tatum missed five threes and closed 0-for-7, taking and missing four tough isolation pull-ups in the closing two minutes. Defensive poised disappeared with the threes. Yet a look at the film showed, on the whole, 31 good looks, 14 tough ones and 14 bad ones that mostly came late. Joe Mazzulla’s first thought after the game turned out true.

“(I was ok with the shots) for the most part,” he said. “Over the course of the game, you always can find 5-10 shots that  you want to be better at, but I thought throughout the night, for the most part, we fought for good looks.”

The shot quality didn’t happen in a vacuum though. Those misses led to pressing, and the Celtics turned the ball over four times in the fourth. They committed their sloppiest plays trying to force the ball inside, and found few outlets for offense outside pull-up jumpers and hunting mismatches in isolation. Doing too much inside the arc led to the worst plays late in the game — not the threes.

Jaylen Brown and Tatum handled most of that heavy lifting, and shot 14-for-43 and 5-for-25 from three. They just weren’t good enough.

Some blame does fall on the coaching. The Celtics’ plays ran flat as the game progressed, Tatum stepping around screens repeatedly until the Knicks found timely opportunities to blitz him. More often, New York played in the gaps and slowed his and Brown’s decision-making. The way they hedged was impressive, showing just enough on the ball to give Brown and Tatum pause before recovering quickly when they did get off the ball. That’s where many of the tough shots happened, Derrick White and Al Horford utilizing small windows to get threes off.

“Being poised enough to recognize when to take it and when not to take it, I don’t think we did a good enough job of that tonight,” Brown said. “Of like seeing the game, understanding the game. It was like we were just firing it up for whatever reason. We gotta find them better in rhythm. Get to the paint, get a paint touch, get to the free throw line and those threes feel a little bit better. We’ll look at it. Obviously, we were excited, came out to start the second round of the playoffs. But we gotta play with more poise than we did tonight.”

Brown felt like the Knicks dared Boston to shoot at times, and while that sentiment didn’t exist in the Knicks locker room, Josh Hart and Towns downplaying any notion they wanted the Celtics to shoot 60 threes, it let New York off the hook defensively. Brunson and Towns entered halftime with three fouls each that gave the Celtics a 20-19 free throw attempt edge. Brown’s probing late in the second provided some of the best looks of the night.

Free throws flipped to 11-6 for the Knicks in the second half, and while Boston can say it’ll make threes next time, New York left 14 points at the free throw line. Towns fouled twice after halftime. Brunson once.

Sending Robinson there to shoot 3-for-10 seemed savvy early, especially as an answer to the Celtics landing in the penalty early. But it cost Kornet three fouls, and when Porziņģis couldn’t go in the second half, Kornet could only manage nine minutes. Hauser entered cold in the second half after not playing in the first, an odd decision when the game called for quick release threes. He turned his ankle after two misses to start the third.

“I don’t think you want to force them into threes,” Hart said. “We don’t want them to shoot more threes. They got great shooters. We just tried to make it tough for them, play physical and do those kind of things. You never want a team like that to shoot more threes. We were trying to take away threes and they still got up 60.”

Almost all the Celtics’ offense came in isolation, making one pass against hedges or driving into dump-offs. The latter became more sparse with Horford on the floor playing five out, and seemed to allow the Knicks to play in the gaps even more. Kornet could at least occupy a defender in the dunker’s spot while Brown and Tatum drove. Jrue Holiday filled that role late, setting up White’s go-ahead three.

The Celtics simply slowed down, giving themselves little time to progress through sets. Brown made quicker decisions at times, though his giveaways nearly matched Tatum’s. The lack of driving activity around screens by Tatum made little sense after such an aggressive series against Orlando. Payton Pritchard and Holiday, who got downhill running sets early, didn’t receive opportunities after halftime or even minutes in Pritchard’s case.

That left Tatum launching late in the fourth. The first, a good one ahead by one point to prevent transition the other way. The second, a tough look with Knicks defenders cutting off his driving lanes later in the shot clock. The third, a tie game heave over Robinson that looked more aimed at killing clock than getting points. The fourth shot had no chance with 0.6 second left on the clock.

Into overtime, Holiday shot two tough jump shots, Brown gave the ball away dribbling aimlessly inside and Tatum stepped into a two that he missed. Down six after Tatum and Brown missed defensive assignments the other way, White and Tatum got into a screening action by the latter that let his seal Mikal Bridges for two. Too little, too late trailing by four with two minutes left.

“Probably some times that we settled for myself,” Tatum said. “I could’ve put more pressure on the rim, but there were a lot of times we felt like we got some really, really good looks and we just couldn’t convert.”