Re: Celtics: playoff hopes

[Francis Hsu <francis@ai.mit.edu>]

To add to the list of questions, I would submit:
Can the Celtics succeed emulating a Milwaukee Bucks or Sacramento Kings type
of play offensively?

I've heard quotes from O'Brien and Wallace about loading the team with
shooters and wanting to be like the Bucks or the Kings.  So I think
whether the C's make the playoffs will be largely determined by whether
the C's can successfully emulate the Bucks/Kings offense.  Do we have
the players to do this?

Taking the comparison of the C's with the Bucks and Kings to a statistical
level proves interesting (stats courtesy of ESPN):

Team Shooting (Offense) per game
                                                                     
             PTS    FGM   FGA   FG%  3PM   3PA   3P%   FTM   FTA   FT%   PPS
Sacramento  101.7  38.2  85.0  .449  5.8  16.5  .354  19.5  25.3  .771  1.20
Milwaukee   100.7  38.0  82.9  .458  6.9  18.1  .379  18.0  22.9  .787  1.22
Boston       94.6  33.8  79.1  .428  7.2  19.9  .363  19.8  26.7  .740  1.20

Interestingly, we averaged around the same points per shot as the Kings and
Bucks, despite our lower FG%.  But we take less FG attempts per game.
Statistically, if we averaged 5 more field goal attempts per game, we would
be up there offensively with Sacramento and Milwaukee.

Rebounding per game
             Total
             OWN   OPP   DIF
Sacramento  45.0  45.9  -0.9
Milwaukee   42.4  42.7  -0.4
Boston      39.8  43.1  -3.3

I think we can count our inferior rebounding as one of the factors leading to
less FG attempts at the offensive end.

Assists, Steals, Blocks and Turnovers per game
              Assists    Steals    Blocks       Turnovers
             OWN   OPP  OWN  OPP  OWN  OPP   OWN   OPP   DIF  A/TO
Sacramento  22.6  22.1  9.7  8.1  5.3  5.8  14.4  15.6  +1.2  1.57
Milwaukee   22.5  23.0  8.2  7.2  4.7  4.3  13.2  14.8  +1.6  1.70
Boston      20.8  23.0  9.4  7.9  4.1  5.4  15.1  16.2  +1.1  1.38

We are worse in assists, blocks and assists-to-turnovers.

Armed with these statistics, the questions I would ask are:
1) Have we significantly improved our rebounding capabilities?
2) Can we support a faster style of play, leading to more field goal attempts?
3) Are we going to see better ball movement, improved playmaking at the
   offensive end?
4) Have we improved our shot blocking?

Francis