Deja Vu Stats

by Jeff Clark on Jan 20, 2009 11:26 PM EST in Boston Celtics News & Links

Be the Three has fun with numbers

What I found is this: Statistically, this team is almost exactly as good as it was last year.

Seriously, some of the numbers are downright scary. Here are the current season's stats up against last year's. (All '07-08 stats in this post are pre-All-Star break unless you see **)

'07-08 '08-09

Off. Efficiency ** 110.2 109.8

Def. Efficiency ** 98.9 99.6

Pace Factor ** 90.9 91.0

FG% 47.3 48.1

Opp. FG% 42.1 42.3

3-point % 38.1 37.3

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Great Read.

But for those that are short on time here’s the bad news, Be The Three finds only one significant statistical difference between last year’s team and this year’s: opponents’ three-point % is up. Silver lining is that since “publication” team has already improved from the quoted 35.1% allowed to 34.2%. Still that means the Celtics have fallen from the league’s best three-point defense to seventh, and behind all three of our chief Eastern conference rivals, Orlando, Detroit and Cleveland (in that order).

Here’s the conclusion:

Observers, including the crack staff of monkeys here at Be the Three, have pointed that Boston occasionally looks tired and doesn’t appear to be closing out on shooters as maniacally they did last season. Perhaps this is evidence.

by The Walker Wiggle on Jan 21, 2009 1:17 AM EST reply actions

Record similar as well...

C’s were 33-6 last year at this time. This year 33-9. They’ve STILL played more games than any other team at this point. Thank you, NBA scheduler.

Yes, it does look like their 3 pt defense is off a bit. I credit the hot start and heavy schedule. They should improve in the 2nd half as the games even out.

by LuckyNumber07 on Jan 21, 2009 7:00 AM EST reply actions

The problem is that a handful of other teams are significantly better than they were last year. Therefore, by being as good as we were, we have actually regressed, relatively speaking.

by kozlodoev on Jan 21, 2009 7:54 AM EST reply actions

Yeps

That’s exactly the problem. We were the best defensive team by a large margin (almost 3 points differential in def. eff. to the 2nd best defensive team in the league; 8 points to the league average). This season, we are basically on par with Cleveland and Orlando. For example, the efficiency differential last season was 11.3. Following us, Detroit with 8.5 and LAL with 7.5. This season we have a nice 10.3 differential. The problem is that the Lakers have improved to 9, Orlando improved to 9 and Cleveland to… 12.5!

Besides that, we’ve declined in terms of def. efficiency since the 2nd half of last season. That’s worrisome, as it makes sense that our defense was improving throughout last season, peaking near the end – it was the first time that team was playing together. But why are we now defending worse than in the 2nd half of last season? Hopefully, they’re just pulling a San Antonio.

by cordobes on Jan 21, 2009 10:16 AM EST up reply actions

Interesting no Posey, bench woes, post-Christmas slump and team looks statistically the same. This looks reassuring I think because they haven’t consistently played at last season’s level especially defensively. Hopefully they’ll continue to get better over the next half of the season.

by twinbree on Jan 21, 2009 1:32 PM EST reply actions