2024 NBA Champions - Boston Celtics

[DSMok1]

Congratulations to the 2024 NBA Champions, the Boston Celtics!

These Celtics are a fairly unique team historically, with an exceptionally well-rounded starting 5 (+ Al Horford) who can all pass, score, and flexibly defend at a high level. There are no "role players" in their top 6. No weak offensive players for an opponent to hide a weak defender on. No weak defenders to target on offense. The starting 5 are all clear positive impact players, and have the ability to ramp up their games as necessary depending on situation and matchup.

Congratulations to their front office, many of whom have a strong basketball analytics background. Mike Zarren (VP of Basketball Operations) and David Lewin (Asst. GM), David Sparks (Dir. of Basketball Analytics)... and of course GM Brad Stevens has always been invested in basketball analytics.

The front office really focused on acquiring players with strong impact signals--players whose impact on the court consistently exceed the box score indications. This definitely paid off. The Celtics are one of the most versatile teams in history. And one of the few dominant title teams that was not built around a clear MVP front-runner.

[DSMok1]

Some noteworthy items:

• The Celtics had only one negative player in the finals, which was Pritchard (mostly due to his cold shooting). The other 7 in the rotation were clear positives. Hauser made up for his possibly somewhat weaker defense with a TS% of 0.735.
• Of those 7 Celtics, all of them had arguments for being the top contributor during the series in different ways. By VORP, the top 6 were almost tied--with Al Horford in first and Jaylen Brown in 6th. Porzingis was behind due to fewer minutes, of course, but was perhaps the most impactful individual player on the flow of the game. One of the most balanced teams of all time. (The beautiful game Spurs and the early 2000s Pistons come to mind as analogs.)
• The Celtics had 27 blocks to 11 from Dallas, which points to how well Boston schemed to deal with the Dallas centers. Porzingis and Derrick White tied for the most blocks in the series!
• The Celtics had 121 assists to 51 turnovers; the Mavericks had 84 assists to 55 turnovers. Doncic had 28 assists to 23 turnovers. What a tremendous job of neutralizing the Dallas offensive strategy and forcing Doncic to just be a scorer. It helps that the Celtics were able to defend Luka generally 1-on-1 without truly committing a double team.
• Tatum and Brown combined for more assists (61) than Doncic and Irving (53). The progress of Tatum and Brown as distributors over their careers has been incredible.

[Mike G]

... an exceptionally well-rounded starting 5 (+ Al Horford) who can all pass, score, and flexibly defend at a high level. ..

Decent at rebounding, too.
League median Ast/100 was 4.6, and Porzingis was 3.4 this year. Hauser 2.3, others above the norm.

It's always seemed obvious to me that players who can "do everything" are much more valuable than guys who simply make open shots and avoid turnovers. If your shot isn't working, what do you do?

We still don't capture much defense in boxscore numbers, but we do see who gets more/fewer minutes. Is that why Jaden Hardy couldn't find floor time? The Mavs really needed some offensive punch at least half the time.

When Kornet isn't in the rotation, the Celts had five 3-point shooters all night. Only way to beat them is hope they miss a lot.
Mavs countered with Kleber at center. He literally did almost nothing.

[Crow]

Celtics in playoffs only modestly above mean on 3pt fg% (7th ranked), but massive lead in 3pt frequency.

Celtics very low on at the rim fga frequency and long 2s.


Mavs, pretty similar playoff shot distribution.