The NBA is in the midst of an offensive explosion, with 14 of the best 15 historical offensive ratings for teams coming in the past four seasons. The Boston Celtics currently boast the third-best offensive rating in NBA history, and like so many teams in the new, high-scoring NBA, they do it in part by […]
Throughout these NBA Finals, the Golden State Warriors offense has been fairly consistent. The Dubs have scored between 100 and 108 points in all five games, and their offensive rating has held steady between 108.1 and 115 in each contest. By contrast, the Boston Celtics have fluctuated wildly between blistering efficiency and devastating ineptitude. Boston […]
The play could have been a turning point. To start the third quarter of Monday’s Game 5 against the Golden State Warriors, the Boston Celtics’ Jaylen Brown had made two trips to the free-throw line and, miracle of miracles, knocked down all four shots. Jayson Tatum had sidestepped behind a screen to sink a 3-pointer. […]
Late in the third quarter of Game 2 of the NBA Finals, Jayson Tatum came off a screen from Al Horford and walked himself right into a wide-open three pointer that splashed through the net. As he did so, his defender on the play, Andrew Wiggins, was several steps below the 3-point arc, with his […]
sara.ziegler (Sara Ziegler, sports editor): Eight grueling months after we started this NBA season, we’re finally down to our final two: the Boston Celtics and the Golden State Warriors, just like everyone predicted back in October. We have to acknowledge that FiveThirtyEight’s model absolutely did not see this coming: We gave the Celtics just a […]