Boston Celtics Analytics

Why the analytics were so supportive of Boston's dominant title run

HD INTELLIGENCE

JUL 30

Last month, as the champagne was still flowing and the Boston Celtics celebrated their 18th NBA title, the Wall Street Journal published a quick dispatch from the deciding Game 5.

The headline: The Boston Celtics Won the NBA Title. Their MVP Was Math.

Of course, this caught our attention at HDI Headquarters. We believe wholeheartedly in the power of empirical reasoning to build a championship basketball team, and here it was on the grandest stage.

The writer Robert O’Connell made the point that in rolling to a 4-1 series win against the Dallas Mavericks, the Celtics “seemed to be doing something other than playing basketball. Sure, they were driving for dunks, rising to block shots and launching 3-pointers. But really, they were solving a math problem, again and again and again.”

In Boston’s case, that meant seeking out high-percentage 3-pointers while influencing their opponent to take a high volume of lower-percentage 2-point shots. “The Celtics statistically had the best offense in the history of the NBA because they are more obsessed than any team in basketball with the data that increasingly defines the sport,” O’Connell wrote.

Certainly, the Celtics were not the first team to solve that math problem. The leaguewide 3-point attempt rate has, after all, risen in 12 of the last 13 seasons, increasing in that span from 22.2 percent to 39.5 percent of all field goal attempts.

But it was Boston that best executed an analytically sound strategy this season. The Celtics took a league-leading 47.1 percent of their shots from 3, while their opponents took the fifth-highest share of shots in the midrange and third-lowest share at the rim.

So, while the organization has drafted well, developed talent effectively, executed a number of advantageous trades and performed in the clutch — all critical elements of their success — they also put their players in position to maximize their abilities by having an analytically driven approach to both offensive and defensive strategy. (To say nothing about the way analytics has informed their approach to roster construction — that’s another post for another newsletter.)

But here’s what’s really interesting about Boston’s dominant path to a championship in 2024: The same franchise could have made the same claims last season.

The 2022-23 Celtics took roughly the same share of their shots from 3 (though they were second in the league), and their opponents took roughly the same share of shots in the midrange. All of that ended with a thud in the Eastern Conference Finals, when Boston went nine for forty-two from 3 in a blowout home loss to the Miami Heat.

Good organizations find formulas that work. Great organizations stick with them when at first they come up short. “Anytime you’re developing a new philosophy or style, it just takes time for understanding and execution,” Boston coach Joe Mazzula said after this year’s title.

So instead of abandoning their philosophy, the Celtics doubled down on it. While every team has progressed in their use of analytically driven offense — every team in the league took at least 35 percent of shots from 3 — the 2024 NBA title went to the team that fearlessly pushed its chips to the center and went all-in. It’s not enough to talk the talk about analytics; great teams must also walk the walk.

Leadership and Learning

“Leadership and learning are indispensable to one another.” - John F. Kennedy

Honesty

Honesty as a Leadership Quality

People want to follow an honest leader. Years ago, many employees started out by assuming that their leadership was honest simply because the authority of their position. With modern scandals, this is no longer true.

When you start a leadership position, you need to assume that people will think you are a little dishonest. In order to be seen as an honest individual, you will have to go out of your way to display honesty. People will not assume you are honest simply because you have never been caught lying.

One of the most frequent places where leaders miss an opportunity to display honesty is in handling mistakes. Much of a leader’s job is to try new things and refine the ideas that don’t work. However, many leaders want to avoid failure to the extent that they don’t admit when something did not work.

• Mark Shead , Leadership501.com

Empower Others

Empower Others

Great leaders understand that for people to give their best, they must have a sense of ownership over their work and believe that what they’re doing is meaningful. Communicate clear goals and deadlines to your team, and then give them the autonomy and authority to decide how the work gets done. Challenge them with high expectations and encourage them to be creative and show innovation.

• Are you giving your team the autonomy and authority to decide how the work gets done?

• Are you encouraging them to be creative and show innovation?

-From MichaelPage.com

The Cost of Leadership

Georgia Football Coach Kirby Smart on the cost of leadership:

Great leaders recognize there is a cost to leadership and accept these costs:

1. You are going to have to make hard decisions that will negatively affect people you care about.

2. You will be disliked despite your best attempts to do the best for the most.

3. You will be misunderstood and you won’t always have the opportunity to defend yourself.

Intentional and Honest

“The goal is to have an intentional and honest conversation. And to get to the point as fast as you can.”

• Sundance Wicks, Wyoming Basketball Head Coach

Greatness

One of the best explanations of effective leadership you’ll ever see. David Marquet was a Navy Ship captain who changed the entire culture - and effectiveness - of the ship with a different leadership approach.

This is worth keeping close and re-watching every 6 months or so.

“Move the authority to where the information is.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psAXMqxwol8

Prosocial Skills

Adam Grant’s book, Hidden Potential, takes a deep dive into the science behind high achievement. I really liked this excerpt on prosocial skills and team dynamics and leadership.

Prosocial skills are the glue that transforms groups into teams. Instead of operating as lone wolves, people become part of a cohesive pack. We normally think about cohesion in terms of interpersonal connection, but team building and bonding exercises are overrated. Yes, icebreakers and ropes courses can breed camaraderie, but meta-analyses suggest that they don’t necessarily improve team performance. What really makes a difference is whether people recognize that they need one another to succeed on an important mission. That’s what enables them to bond around a common identity and stick together to achieve their collective goals…

Leaders play an important role in establishing cohesion. They have the authority to turn independent individuals into an interdependent team. But all too often, when it comes time to decide who takes the helm, we fall to consider the glue factor.

When we select leaders, we don’t usually pick the person with the strongest leadership skills. We frequently choose the person who talks the most. It’s called the babble effect. Research shows that groups promote the people who command the most airtime - regardless of their aptitude and expertise. We mistake confidence for competence, certainty for credibility, and quantity for quality. We get stuck following people who dominate the discussion instead of those who elevate it.

Do you see elements of this in your team?

Can you find ways to make sure your players recognize they need each other?

How do you develop your teams prosocial skills?

Are your leaders really those who are most qualified to lead? Or are they the loudest?

Grant’s book gives you a lot of great things to think about when you are trying to build your team.

Elite Performers as Teachers

“It’s often said that those who can’t do, teach. It would be more accurate to sat that those who can do, can’t teach the basics. A great deal of expert knowledge is tacit - it’s implicit, not explicit. The further you progress toward master, the less conscious awareness you often have of the fundamentals. Experiments show that skilled golfers and wine aficionados have a hard time describing their putting and tasting techniques - even asking them to explain their approaches is enough to interfere with their performance, so they often stay on autopilot. When I first saw an elite diver do four and a half somersaults, I asked how to managed to spin so fast. His answer: “Just go up in a ball.” Experts often have an intuitive understanding of a route, but they struggle to articulate all the steps to take.” - Adam Grant, Hidden Potential

I’m always reminded of workout I was doing with Herbert Hill when he was a redshirt freshmen at Providence College, and Ryan Gomes, who would go on to play 10 years in the NBA. Gomes was a college All-American, and Herb was a raw, skinny freshmen with a ton of potential but a long way to go (he’d go on to lead the Big East in scoring and rebounding and get drafted by the 76ers in the second round).

I was working with Herb on footwork, and Gomes was trying to help. But in trying to articulate what he did with his feet, Gomes was having trouble explaining himself to Herb. He could show Herb what he would do when he got cut off making his move and had to spin back to score, but he couldn’t really explain it in a way that Herb could understand. It was something that Gomes could do naturally, but couldn’t necessarily teach.

I just read Adam Grant’s latest book “Hidden Potential,” and he talks about many experts have trouble explaining what it is they are great at. I think a lot about great players who become coaches. We often think that someone who was elite at a certain sport would naturally make a great coach in that sport, but it isn’t always the case. That’s not to say you can’t be a great player and a great coach, but to do so I think you have to understand not only what made you great, but how to explain what made you great to others. That second part is not that easy.

Keep that in mind when you are thinking about leadership on our teams. The best players might not be able to articulate what they do that made them so good, and therefore might not be able to impact their teammates in the way you might like. Just because you have an elite peformer doesn’t mean they can teach others how they do it.

Stan Van Gundy - South Beach Sessions

Incredibly open and vulnerable conversation between Dan Le Batard and Stan Van Gundy. Well worth your time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZykQdeUZYg

Planning Ahead

When I first became a head coach, like most first-time coaches, I wanted to get everything done as quick as possible. I was anxious to establish a new culture and set the tone for our program. I took over the job at Rhode Island College in September, so school had already started.

The fall for Division III coaches isn’t a lot of fun. There are no off-season workouts. You can’t get in the gym with your guys. School starts and you are excited to get everything started, and then you have to wait until October 15th to do anything with your players. It isn’t easy.

I was going to get ahead of the game. I spent the fall planning out our practices up until our first game. I figured out the off days and started calculating what I wanted to have in by when, leading all the way up to our first game. I planned out every practice, a process that took a few weeks to finalize. We were going to be prepared and ready to go once October 15th rolled around.

That lasted about 30 minutes into my first practice. I realized quickly that so much of what we did every day in practice depended on the players, what they could grasp, their strengths and weaknesses, and my ability to teach. Right away it was obvious certain things (mostly defensive concepts) were going to take a lot longer than I thought. And other things were going to have to get cut. There was no way to say we were going to do 20 minutes of shell drill on day one and be done with it. For the most part, teaching and implementing took a lot longer than I expected and that impacted our ability to move on to other things.

Planning ahead was really a waste of my time. Obviously it makes sense to prepare and to plan your practices, but trying to lay out a schedule a month ahead of time is useless. Your team and their strengths and weaknesses will dictate what you need to do and how long you need to do it for. And there is no way to really know that until you start practicing.

One of the best things you can prepare for is the ability to adjust. A large part of coaching and building a team is adapting to what is happening every day. Some days your kids may be really sharp and focused, and you realize you can get a lot of stuff in. On other days they may have great energy and once you start playing you don’t want to stop and teach, because you don’t want to slow them down. Having a feel and understanding of your team will dictate when and how fast you can teach.

It always makes us feel better to plan ahead. We love to feel prepared. But when it comes to practice, you have to be ready for the unexpected. When you are trying to build a team, the best path will be dictated by what you see in front of you. It’s hard to plan that path in September, and when you do you’ll probably find you are wasting your time.

Coach K On Leadership

Some great nuggets from Coach K on leadership:

1. Create Ownership

2. Coach The Person Individually

3. Unite Big Egos

4. Listen and Respond

5. Show Vulnerability

https://x.com/gb1121/status/1799902685291782452

Lead By Example

Everyone leads by example. It’s not something good players or certain leaders choose to do. By definition, everyone does it. Leading by example is going about your business a certain way, and having an impact on those around you. Everyone has a certain way of doing things, and they don’t choose the impact it has on the people around them.

Leading by example isn’t always a positive influence. The teammate with the wrong attitude or bad work habits is leading by example just as much as anyone. Everyone sees how he operates. Some may look at him in disgust as a bad teammate and say they’ll never act that way, but others may look at him and realize they can get away with some shortcuts. No one is telling that kid to lead by example, but he’s doing it. Everyone does it.

I’m not a big fan of using leadership by example as an example of great leadership. To me, it’s the most basic form of leadership. It’s going about your business every day, regardless of those who are around you. When I hear the first thing a coach says about a player as a leader is that he “really leads by example,” I think to myself maybe he’s a great player and a hard worker, but he’s not that great of a leader.

Great leadership is more than just what you do. Now, I’m not saying leadership by example can’t be impactful - it can be very powerful. The Mom or Dad who gets up at 6 am and works two jobs to take care of their family every day, they are setting a great example for their kids and having a huge impact. But on teams, we don’t have 25 years of growing up to really understand the impact of seeing something like that every day. High-performing teams need more than just leadership by example.

Some players aren’t comfortable with traditional leadership, and they don’t wan to speak up or take on a leadership role. Hopefully, they can just lead by example in a positive way. But your team is going to need more than that. I’m sure your team has some players that have great leadership instincts and qualities, and it’s your job to find them and develop them. Figure out who can handle a leadership role, and don’t just let them lead by example. Define leadership for them and nurture their ability to impact your team.

If you allow all of your players to just lead by example, you won’t have an impactful leadership dynamic within your team. To sustain success at a high level, you are going to need more.

Bill Walton on John Wooden

RIP Bill Walton

https://x.com/CGProgram/status/1795210523270590748

Ivy Championship Game - Foul Up 6?

Do you ever consider fouling on purpose up 6 late in a game?

One of the more incredible finishes in college basketball this season in the Ivy League Championship game between Brown and Yale. Brown was up 6 with under :25 to play, and Yale outscored them 8-1 in the last :22 to win the game at the buzzer.

https://x.com/CBSSportsCBB/status/1769424728006050054?s=20

This brings up the question - do you ever consider fouling when you are up 6 late in a game? There is a lot of conversation about whether or not to foul up 3 late, but not a lot of people talk about fouling when you are up 6.

When up 6 in the last 20 seconds you feel like you are in control. Just get one stop and the game is basically over. However, if you give up a 3 in that situation, the game completely changes. Now it is a one possession game and you are forced to get the ball inbounds - somewhat unexpectedly - against full court pressure. I’ve seen teams - and I’ve coached teams - that panic in this scenario. The tone of the game changes, and it’s easy for the offensive team to get tight.

I started fouling in this situation when the clock got below the :15 second mark. It’s reasonable to think the other teams best chance to beat you - and perhaps their only chance - is if they hit a 3 in that situation. If the make a 2, or they hit 2 free throws, you are still up 2 possessions. If they make the 2 free throws and foul you, and you only hit one free throw, you are still up 5. Heck, if you miss both free throws or turn the ball over you are still up 4.

I recognize it’s not an easy decision, but I do feel that fouling when up 6 around the :15 second mark gives you the best chance to win. I’ve seen countless teams bury a difficult 3 without much thought, and all of the sudden it’s a different game.

Joe Mazzulla actually fouled up 6 with :12 to play in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals, which I don’t see in the NBA that often. Unfortunately due to a Jayson Tatum missed block out, the Pacers got the ball back after making the first free throw now down just 5. But it is still a two possession game at that point, and the Celtics went on to win relatively smoothly.

It’s worth thinking about. If you believe in fouling up 3 late in a game, you might consider fouling up 6 as well. I think it gives you the best chance to win.

Hard To Win With

• If you won’t commit on the defensive end…

• If you can’t remember the plays…

• If you look off an open teammate…

• If you can’t follow a scouting report…

• If you won’t consistently block out…

• If you can’t keep your body in front of the ball…

• If you don’t sprint back after a turnover…

• If you are complaining to the officials during play…

• If you don’t make the extra pass…

• If you refuse to talk defensively…

• If you can’t handle coming off the bench…

• If you can’t handle the emotion of competition…

• If you get technical fouls…

• If you are constantly breaking off the play…

• If you bail out defensively…

• If you are out late partying…

• If you won’t go to class…

• If you are late for the bus….

• If you don’t show up early for treatment…

• If you can’t handle criticism…

• If you won’t put the team first…

• If you don’t put in the time to get better…

• If you don’t always give great effort…

• If you won’t dive on a loose ball…

• If we can’t count on you…

…you are HARD TO WIN WITH

Don’t Overlook The Good Stuff

One of the mistakes I made when I first became a head coach was that I took the positive stuff for granted. I was so focused on the mistakes, the changes we needed to make, and what we needed to do better. Whether it was about an individual player or the team, I was focused - like most coaches - on what needed to change.

I was always confident in our culture and our preparation, and that led to efficient practices where our players could perform at a high level. I expected them to do the good things. When somebody does a great job blocking out, dives on the floor for a loose ball or sprints back to deflect a pass in transition, that is what I expect to see. I would find myself only speaking up when something negative happened, so the what the players heard was usually intense and on the negative side. They were being corrected all the time, but rarely being praised.

I had to learn as a head coach to recognize and emphasize the positive. Research on what motivates people says one of the best things you can do is be a fan, to constantly show them that you believe in and enjoy what they do. When I was constantly correcting mistakes and focusing only on what needed to change, I wasn’t doing that.

I also had to learn to recognize the low-maintenance players who always did the right things. Those were players I often overlooked. I didn’t appreciate what they did every day, I just came to expect it. And because of that, I’m sure my players felt they only heard from me when something wasn’t right.

Don’t forget to recognize the positive stuff that you see every day. Make sure your players know you appreciate the basic good stuff they do every day. I know you have a lot to correct and the mistakes need to change. But make sure your players are appreciated for the positive stuff they do everyday.

“Unbreakable”

Nick Saban referred to him as the Alabama "Head" Coach because he worked with players to reprogram their brains for success and performance.

He is Dr. Kevin Elko. In 2022, he was asked, "What's the one trait that all champions have?" His answer was ONE word. He said, "They're UNBREAKABLE." He said, “You can't break them. They're unbreakable. They have a vision of themselves. They have a concept they believe about themselves and they'll do anything to protect it."

How do they get this way? They do 2 things:

1. They believe in themselves - Self-belief and self-confidence comes from within. Top performers have a vision of themselves, what they want, and they work to become that vision. He said, "They'll protect that vision. You won't crack them." Their drive and belief allow them to choose resilience even when challenges and obstacles get in their way.

2. They take ownership of themselves - They take ownership of their attitude, effort, and mindset through the standard that they set. It's important to create a standard and live to that standard because you build good habits from that standard. He said, “When your habits are powerful and they are effective, you start to win now. If you don't develop habits intentionally, you will develop the bad ones.”. Champions take ownership of their attitude, effort, and mindset.

“A good coach inspires, a great coach teaches habit.” - Dr. Kevin Elko

• From @coachajkings

Tough - Jayson Tatum

A lot of younger players have a misguided idea of “tough.” Tough is a lot more about being able to handle your emotions than getting emotional. Tough is walking away from the fight when it’s going to hurt your team. Tough is competing at an elite level every day in practice throughout the year, regardless of your record or personal situation.

Tough isn’t necessarily what many young players think it is. I like what Jayson Tatum had to say about tough.

https://x.com/TheHoopHerald/status/1786204135550845348

Leadership Is An Action

“Leadership is an action, not a position.” ~ Donald McGannon

Perhaps the most important practical move you can make as a behavior is to define leadership as behavior. In fact, you should find a way to define all of your values in behavioral terms. Be clear with your team about what is important to you, and show them the behaviors that define it.

Traditional leadership tells us it is a position - a person in charge who tells others what to do. But people and teams are defined by their behaviors, and the leadership is responsible for defining those behaviors. If you want to understand the culture of an organization, don’t ask their veterans to tell you about it - look at their new employees and see how they act. That is their culture. It is the behavior that defines who you are.

Leadership is action. It’s not a position. It’s influence that leads to behaviors. Define those behaviors for your team and let them take ownership of your culture.