The Killer Jays

How Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown orchestrated the Celtics’ 0-2 deficit to the New York Knicks

The Boston Celtics’ shocking 0-2 series deficit to the New York Knicks is nothing short of miraculous. In both contests, the Celtics built up 20-point leads halfway through the third quarter and watched them slip away over the ensuing 16 minutes with 16 and 17-point fourth quarters. In game one, the Celtics lost by three in overtime, and game two saw them lose by a single point. As difficult as it is to build up a 20-point lead, it’s even more difficult to blow it, but the Celtics managed to do just that in consecutive games.

True to our time, most of the narrative oxygen fueling the Celtics’ brick fired shooting has centered on their massive 3-point volume. In game one, the Celtics took 60 threes and set an NBA playoff record by missing 45. In game two, they ratcheted down the volume a tad, but their 40 3-point attempts still accounted for 42.6% of their field goal attempts. Over two games, the Celtics had taken a clean century of threes, accounting for 52.4% of their field goal attempts, with a George Washington-esque conversion rate of 25%.

Considering the Celtics converted 36.8% of their threes during the regular season, it doesn’t take a calculator to know that if they had shot anywhere near their true talent level, they easily would be up 2-0. Using NBA.com’s closest defender tracking data, the Celtics have scored 54.104 fewer points than you would expect over their two games with the Knicks. And contrary to popular belief, the Knicks are not forcing more contested threes. In fact, 50.2% of the Celtics’ shots have either been open or wide-open threes in the series, up from 46.8% in the regular season.

As the game of basketball continues to plunge deeper into uncharted 3-point volume territory, a growing segment of fans has loudly been pushing back. And naturally, the Boston Celtics, the most 3-point happy team in NBA history, have become another poster child, much like the Phoenix Suns almost two decades ago and the Houston Rockets of the late 2010s, in basketball’s never-ending culture war.

(If you’re interested in the upper threshold of 3-point volume, I wrote about it earlier in the season, and the short story is we are nowhere near the upper limit for 3-point volume.)

The Killer Jays

In a fiendish attempt to bury the lead six feet under, I’ve answered the dumb critique of the Celtics’ 3-point volume while ignoring the dumber, even older one. The Celtics are down 0-2 to the New York Knicks not because they take too many threes, but because their two best players, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, are fucking killing them.

Before I dive into the tracking data, the basic box score stats show just how pitiful “The Jays” have been against the Knicks. Jayson Tatum is averaging 18 points per game on a true shooting percentage (TS%) of 39.2%, and Jaylen Brown is averaging 21.5 points per game on a TS% of 43.7%. The pair has committed eight turnovers apiece and only combined for 17 assists. Tatum’s offensive rating is 85, and Brown’s is 91. That’s not what you want from your two highest usage players, and while the rest of the roster has struggled to hit shots, Tatum and Brown’s overall offensive ineptitude has been the driving force behind the Celtics’ excursion over the ledge.

The Knicks, to their credit, have OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges as “The Jays” primary matchups on defense, but it’s not like the Celtics haven’t set screens for their two primary scorers to either gain an advantage or garner a favorable switch. Interestingly, the Knicks, based on the tracking data, haven’t generally forced the pair into more contested shots.

For very tight and tight, a negative number suggests improved shot quality, while for open and wide open, a positive number is better. Between the two, eleven out of the sixteen boxes have moved in the right direction in terms of shot quality, with Tatum’s increase of 13.8% on open 3-point attempts representing the largest gain. While the Knicks aren’t necessarily closing down on Tatum and Brown any more than you would expect, that doesn’t mean they aren’t defending them well. In many cases, what type of shot a player takes is just as important as how close the nearest defender is.

In the regular season, Jayson Tatum had an effective field goal percentage (eFG%) of 59.2% on catch-and-shoot jumpers, but that figure dropped to 46.6% on pull-ups. Jaylen Brown experienced a similar decline, going from an eFG% of 54.4% on catch and shoot opportunities down to 42% on pull-ups. Needless to say, a defense forcing catch-and-shoot opportunities to become pull-ups is a massive win, and the Knicks have done just that.

Tatum has seen both his catch and shoot opportunities decrease and his pull-up attempts increase against the Knicks, while Brown has seen his pull-up attempts increase. Brown getting more catch-and-shoot opportunities suggests the Knicks are much more keyed into stopping Tatum from getting his most efficient looks, and should his series shooting woes change, he could be in store for a big game.

Going even deeper down the tracking rabbit hole, we can see how the Knicks are generally forcing Tatum and Brown to take more dribbles before they get a shot off. Similar to the efficiency decline from catch and shoot opportunities, the more dribbles a player takes, the more likely they are to miss the shot.

The Knicks have done a masterful job of forcing Tatum into more seven-plus-dribble threes, while also taking away his zero-dribble opportunities. Brown has seen his share of zero-dribble threes increase, but he’s seen an increase in two-dribble threes, a reduction in two to six dribble 2-pointers, and an increase in seven-dribble 2-point attempts. The Knicks have functionally decided to surrender open threes to Jaylen Brown to make Tatum’s life miserable all over the court and to take away easy driving lanes for Brown. Unsurprisingly, the Knicks’ defense is finding success by targeting Tatum and Brown’s strengths as scorers.

So, how exactly have the Knicks gone about short-circuiting one of the league’s most successful scoring duos? It’s pretty simple, actually. They’re fighting like hell to get through screens, switching when they have to, getting physical if they’re in a mismatch, packing the paint at the first sign of a drive, and praying the Celtics miss their threes. It should be noted, Kristapas Porzingis’ absence has loomed large as it has allowed the Knicks to keep their centers closer to the basket and more keyed in on ball handlers in their pick-and-roll defense, as Al Horford and Luke Kornet are not the lob or pick-and-pop threat that Porzingis is.

Now, the Knicks haven’t stumbled upon the ultimate defensive solution to Tatum and Brown. The pair has missed a ton of shots that they usually hit, and despite the more difficult shot diet, they should be scoring much more efficiently. In particular, Brown’s struggles on catch and shoot jumpers, he’s shooting 22.2% in the first two games, has been a risky gambit that has paid off for New York.

Outside of hitting their shots (the best coaching adjustment in NBA history), there are a few things both Tatum and Brown can do to get the Celtics back on track. Brown has had a ton of success scoring on Josh Hart, and it’s a matchup they should exploit whenever possible. Getting out in semi-transition would also be an excellent way to get Brown some easy buckets before the Knicks can fully set their defense.

For Tatum, he needs to get back to the basics. When Tatum struggles, it’s usually because he stops playing like the player he is and starts playing like the player he wanted to be as a 12-year-old. Too often, when he has gotten an advantage off a screen, he bails out the defense by taking a pull-up three or mid-range jumper. Tatum is at his best as a catch-and-shoot 3-point shooter and when he’s attacking the defense downhill. For all the paint-packing the Knicks have done, Karl-Anthony Towns is still usually their last line of defense. Tatum needs to stop trying to be a pull-up hero and fulfill his role within the Celtics’ offense as their lead initiator and catch-and-shoot sniper.

The Celtics are down 0-2 to the Knicks because of abysmal 3-point shooting and the lackluster play of their two stars. The 3-point shooting will come back, and when it does, the Celtics should steamroll the Knicks. However, the play of Brown and Tatum will need to improve if they want to repeat as champions. The Oklahoma City Thunder can do everything the Knicks are doing, but more and better. If Tatum and Brown can get back to their best, the Celtics remain the clear favorites in the East. But as this series has shown, for the Celtics to be the Celtics, “the jays” need to be “THE JAYS”.