by Chris Lucia
The slumping Celtics make their way into Portland tonight to match up with the Blazers at the Moda Center.
Boston has been playing poorly lately, prompting Celtics forward Gerald Wallace to once again call his team out publicly.
Perhaps Wallace's words were justified; Over the last five games, Boston has been outscored by an average of about 15 points a night, bullied on the glass and forced into turnovers.
Offensively, small forward Jeff Green is taking the most shots. He's not shy pulling the trigger from downtown as a decent outside shooter, particularly from the right corner. Green doesn't often take jumpers otherwise, but he does like to take it to the rim. On the season he's solid at converting, but lately he's struggled a bit from the field. Expect Green to attempt quite a few shots tonight, as he leads the Celtics in both field-goals and three-pointers attempted per game.
The starting backcourt of guards Avery Bradley and Jordan Crawford is a mixed bag right now. Bradley has been -- to the surprise of some -- a three-point marksman from the corners. Crawford, on the other hand, is an abysmal deep-shooter, though he's not afraid to launch threes. Both are pretty good mid-range shooters and average finishers at the rim. Crawford is much more of a distributor, especially lately. Both get to the free-throw line at a decent rate and are good free-throw shooters.
Backup power forward Jared Sullinger has been shooting quite a bit this year, and he's been terrible from the field in recent weeks, hitting less than a third of his shots and going 0 percent from behind the arc until last night's game in Golden State. Sullinger attempts about two three-pointers a night but will mostly stay near the rim, where he's been average this season but as mentioned earlier, pretty miserable lately outside of last night's loss to the Warriors.
Besides Wallace, the Celtics employ another familiar face for Blazers fans, the recently traded-for guard Jerryd Bayless. Apparently Boston coach Brad Stevens has given him the green light to shoot off the bench, and Bayless has been doing just that, attempting 10 shots a night for the Celtics in just over 20 minutes. Unfortunately for Bayless, his shooting touch has been absent since the trade as he's sub-30 percent from both the field and from outside. He's expected to be a ball-handler off the bench for Stevens, though, and he's passed the ball well for Boston so far.
The Celtics' most efficient scorers reside in the frontcourt, as center Kelly Olynyk and forwards Brandon Bass and Kris Humphries are the team-leaders in true-shooting percentage for the last several games. As Kevin O'Connor of SB Nation's CelticsBlog pointed out in an article yesterday, Boston's best frontcourt lineups include -- basically -- any combination of Humphries and another big. Conversely, the Celtics play much worse on both ends of the court, as a whole, when Bass is on the court. Olynyk takes limited shots in limited minutes, but he's converted well for a rookie so far.
As a team, the Celtics don't do anything particularly well with the ball. They aren't likely to attack the paint to a huge degree of success -- at least, likely not more than any other team has against Portland this season. In the last meeting between the two teams, a mid-November 109-96 Blazers victory in Boston, Sullinger lit up the Blazers with 26 points on 11-18 shooting but the Celtics' next best output that night was an inefficient 14 points from Green.
Source: http://www.blazersedge.com/2014/1/10/5297706/portland-trail-blazers-vs-boston-celtics-preview
The slumping Celtics make their way into Portland tonight to match up with the Blazers at the Moda Center.
Boston has been playing poorly lately, prompting Celtics forward Gerald Wallace to once again call his team out publicly.
Perhaps Wallace's words were justified; Over the last five games, Boston has been outscored by an average of about 15 points a night, bullied on the glass and forced into turnovers.
Offensively, small forward Jeff Green is taking the most shots. He's not shy pulling the trigger from downtown as a decent outside shooter, particularly from the right corner. Green doesn't often take jumpers otherwise, but he does like to take it to the rim. On the season he's solid at converting, but lately he's struggled a bit from the field. Expect Green to attempt quite a few shots tonight, as he leads the Celtics in both field-goals and three-pointers attempted per game.
The starting backcourt of guards Avery Bradley and Jordan Crawford is a mixed bag right now. Bradley has been -- to the surprise of some -- a three-point marksman from the corners. Crawford, on the other hand, is an abysmal deep-shooter, though he's not afraid to launch threes. Both are pretty good mid-range shooters and average finishers at the rim. Crawford is much more of a distributor, especially lately. Both get to the free-throw line at a decent rate and are good free-throw shooters.
Backup power forward Jared Sullinger has been shooting quite a bit this year, and he's been terrible from the field in recent weeks, hitting less than a third of his shots and going 0 percent from behind the arc until last night's game in Golden State. Sullinger attempts about two three-pointers a night but will mostly stay near the rim, where he's been average this season but as mentioned earlier, pretty miserable lately outside of last night's loss to the Warriors.
Besides Wallace, the Celtics employ another familiar face for Blazers fans, the recently traded-for guard Jerryd Bayless. Apparently Boston coach Brad Stevens has given him the green light to shoot off the bench, and Bayless has been doing just that, attempting 10 shots a night for the Celtics in just over 20 minutes. Unfortunately for Bayless, his shooting touch has been absent since the trade as he's sub-30 percent from both the field and from outside. He's expected to be a ball-handler off the bench for Stevens, though, and he's passed the ball well for Boston so far.
The Celtics' most efficient scorers reside in the frontcourt, as center Kelly Olynyk and forwards Brandon Bass and Kris Humphries are the team-leaders in true-shooting percentage for the last several games. As Kevin O'Connor of SB Nation's CelticsBlog pointed out in an article yesterday, Boston's best frontcourt lineups include -- basically -- any combination of Humphries and another big. Conversely, the Celtics play much worse on both ends of the court, as a whole, when Bass is on the court. Olynyk takes limited shots in limited minutes, but he's converted well for a rookie so far.
As a team, the Celtics don't do anything particularly well with the ball. They aren't likely to attack the paint to a huge degree of success -- at least, likely not more than any other team has against Portland this season. In the last meeting between the two teams, a mid-November 109-96 Blazers victory in Boston, Sullinger lit up the Blazers with 26 points on 11-18 shooting but the Celtics' next best output that night was an inefficient 14 points from Green.
Source: http://www.blazersedge.com/2014/1/10/5297706/portland-trail-blazers-vs-boston-celtics-preview
