Ramp to Camp: How can Celtics be even better than last season?

Ramp to Camp: How can Celtics be even better than last season? originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

The Boston Celtics posted one of the most dominant campaigns in NBA history last season. They set an NBA record for offensive rating, finished tied for the third-best net rating of all time and finished top-five all time in scoring differential.

But let’s get greedy. How can the Celtics take another step forward during the 2024-25 season? For the 12th installment of our Ramp to Camp series, that’s the question we posed to our NBC Sports Boston panel: What’s one way this team can get even better?

(Check out our full Ramp to Camp series here.)

Here’s maybe a better question: Where do you even begin to nitpick?

The Celtics posted 17 wins of 25 points or more, meaning 20 percent of their games were complete blowouts. They finished 14 games ahead of their closest rival in the East. They steamrolled through the playoffs, never even seeing a Game 6 along the way.

The Celtics occasionally lost their way against an inferior opponent (that loss to the shorthanded Lakers on February 1 still nags us) and yet they never lost more than two games in a row, and even that only happened four times all season.

Our panel leaned heavily into Boston’s late-game shot selection, and we’d love to stomp our feet about settling for poor shots. But Boston posted an absurd +46.9 net rating in 24 minutes of postseason clutch time and was a perfect 6-0 in those games. This team seemingly learned from its regular-season missteps and had a knack for big-time plays in big-time moments (right, Pacers?)

So here’s the best we can come up with: There is another level these math-loving Celtics can go to with their late-quarter execution. The Celtics did an excellent job in generating 3-for-2 and 2-for-1 possessions over the final minute of quarters, but it feels like shot quality was not fully maximized.

Maybe that doesn’t matter. The analytics suggest that just creating those opportunities is most important. But having everyone on the same page knowing exactly the sort of shots the team will want to create over the final 65 seconds of a…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/ramp-camp-celtics-even-better-132852470.html

Author : NBC Sports Boston

Publish date : 2024-09-17 13:28:52

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.