FG attempts per game

[jmc@ptc.com (Jonathan McIntyre)]

I just looked at the box score of the pitifully slow game between 
Dallas and Utah, in which Dallas' strategy to play super-slow-down 
almost worked, but which Utah won 68-64.  Neither team scored more 
than 19 points in a quarter.  Utah made a only 53 FG attempts, and
Dallas made only 63, combining for only 116, an NBA record, beating the
previous low of 121 by a whopping 5.

After looking at this, I got curious as to what the NBA average for 
FG attempts is, and how far the Celtics are over it.  Heinsohn/Cousy
say the Celtics want at least 90 shots per game in an uptempo style,
but it seems like they're usually in the 80's, and most opponents in 
the 70's.

I just went through the NBA statistics at nba.com and calculated the 
FGA/game of each team, then calculated the FGA given up per game for 
the 8 teams that take the most shots.  The chart is below.  

            FGA/game   Opponents

Boston       84.38       74.14
Miami        79.24
New Jersey   83.73       76.05
New York     77.95
Orlando      79.75
Philadelphia 77.15
Washington   84.61       80.13

Division average: 80.97

Atlanta      77.04
Charlotte    77.57
Chicago      82.54       80.50
Cleveland    76.52
Detroit      77.61
Indiana      74.90
Milwaukee    75.64
Toronto      83.45       81.73

Division average: 78.16


Dallas       80.81
Denver       79.38
Houston      80.39
Minnesota    81.95
San Antonio  75.95
Utah         75.05
Vancouver    79.09

Division average: 78.95

Golden State 89.00       83.75
LA Clippers  81.59
LA Lakers    79.86
Phoenix      82.21       84.95
Portland     78.45
Sacramento   82.86       81.77
Seattle      79.64

Division average: 81.94


NBA Average:  79.94 shots per game. 


Looking at the stats, it looks like the Celtics probably have the biggest 
positive difference of FGA taken vs. allowed of any team in the NBA.  Of 
course, the Celtics need to take better shots, and it's not all because of 
turnovers, but it is encouraging.  

The Celtics are making 18.5 turnovers per game, which is slightly high, 
but they force 21.9 turnovers per game, which is extremely high.  

Another reason for the difference in Field Goals Attempted has to be 
the number of fouls the Celtics commit.  The Celtics take only 24.86
free throws per game, while their opponents take 33.05, or 8 more.  This 
means about 4 more of the opponents' FG attempts aren't counted as attempts
because of fouls, but that still gives the Celtics a FGA advantage of
more than 6 per game.  The foul trouble is to be expected given their
plan is for an aggresive, complicated, organized chaos defense, and
they're still learning it, and they're the youngest team in the NBA.

So if the Celtics could just shoot a FG% equal to their opponents, then 
they'd already have about 9 extra points per game with the 10.2 attempt 
advantage, (assuming 44% shooting if they get close to the rest of the 
NBA) and they have about 6 fewer ppg from the free throw line 
(8 fewer attempts times about 75%) which would add up to a nice 3 point 
advantage on average per game, which would lead to lots of wins. 

Just imagine, as the season progresses and the Celtics learn, practice
and improve their defense and offense, they should be able to keep the
number of turnovers forced at around 22, lower their turnovers commited
to around 17, and lower the number of fouls they commit.  If this
happens, and they start taking better shots, they'll win a lot of games!

Jon Mc