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Live by the three.
Die by the three.
That has been the Boston Celtics' mantra throughout the Joe Mazzulla experience. The Celtics get up more threes than everyone else, and in turn, they make more threes than everybody else.
Brad Stevens has constructed a roster that is overflowing with highly talented three-level scorers. Everyone can guard their yard, create offensive looks, and knock down their shots.
Still, playing with such a high volume on the perimeter comes with a distinct counterbalance: shooting variance.
Sometimes, shots just don't fall. And in the most perplexing of ways, when one member of the Celtics roster goes cold, it spreads throughout the team like wildfire.
We know this.
We've seen it unfold on multiple occasions.
Yet, we can't explain it. Off nights are contagious, apparently.
Throughout the 2024-25 season, Mazzulla's team has adjusted when the threes aren't falling. They embraced the mid-range game, punished the rim, and found wrinkles to exploit within a defense – then, when they felt in rhythm, they tried their luck from deep – often with encouraging results.
That's where things fell apart against the New York Knicks on Monday. The Celtics came into the second half with an ice cold shooting touch. Nothing was falling. Yet, rather than making the adjustments we've become accustomed to seeing, they kept firing away, hoping to turn the tide while out of rhtyhm and playing unrewarding basketball.
"In those moments, when the other team has got momentum, we can't just fire up threes to break up the momentum," Jaylen Brown said in his postgame news conference. "You gotta get to the free throw line, get to the paint, get to the basket. Maybe an easy two. Hit some free throws. And maybe the next three-pointer feels a little bit better. I feel like we just settled in the second half, a lot."
