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18,624. Located on 100 Legends Way, that’s the maximum number of people that the TD Garden can hold for a Celtics home game. Though this ranks towards the bottom in the NBA in capacity, the rowdy Boston area faithful has passionately backed the C’s ever since the franchise moved into the stadium. The Celtics are 9-0 this postseason within these confines.
The road, however, brings out the worst in this team. Boston is 1-6 in the 2017-2018 playoffs away from the TD Garden, and some of those losses have been ugly, most notably the Milwaukee and Cleveland game 3’s. I crunched the numbers for the Celtics average home and road playoff stats, and the results are harrowing. See for yourself below:
Key:
ORtg = offensive rating
eFG% = effective field goal %
DRtg = defensive rating
OeFG% = opponent effective field goal %
Despite how well the Celtics have played at home this postseason, these numbers suggest that they actually play worse on the road than well at home. In other words, their poor play on the road is slightly more noticeable than their terrific play at home. So what are potential sources of this enormous disparity in play?
Several factors probably play a role. For one, it could be attributed to youth. Four of their eight rotation players in these playoffs (Tatum, Ojeleye, Brown, Rozier) haven’t played three full seasons yet. In fact, Tatum has been the go-to guy in these games and he isn’t even 4.5 years older than me. A significant reason why these guys perform better at home is that it’s human nature to play harder and more confident behind an encouraging crowd. Conversely, none of these guys are making noise gestures to the fans in the opposing arena after they make a bucket or block. If you’ve ever been to a public high-school varsity basketball game, you’ll understand how much the home crowd can energize the home team, especially if that home team has a bunch of underclassmen.
Of course, another factor could be that the home team has played with more focus and urgency against the Celtics. In each of Boston’s series thus far, their opposition has been down 0-2 heading back to their respective home court for games 3 and 4. Naturally, those teams play harder, smarter, and better with their backs against the wall, knowing that they can’t afford to lose total grip of the series.
Others, such as our very own Scott Crosby, point to Brad Stevens as the main source of the Celtics lackluster road performances in these playoffs. While the head coach is largely responsible for his team’s preparation for a game on the road, not all of the blame should be pointed at Stevens. Due to the previous two possible contributors, plus the hypothesis put forth by Bill Simmons in which he hinted that coaches may have deliberately not made adjustments in some blowout road games because they want to utilize those decisions in a closer game, Brad Stevens is not the guy who should be held solely accountable for the Celtics horrific play on the road. Plus, if you criticize Stevens’ coaching job in those games, you must also acknowledge his coaching triumphs in these playoffs such as game 7 vs the Bucks, games 1,2, and 3 vs the Sixers, and game 1 vs. the Cavs, not to mention how brilliantly he has coached throughout his tenure in Boston and at Butler.
In any sort of case, the Celtics now find themselves in a spot where they did not want to be considering how well they were playing in the first two games: a best of three series in which the other team has LeBron James and the momentum. As a Celtics fan, though we do have home court advantage, I’m much more nervous about our chances to advance to the NBA Finals than I was four days ago.
(Stats via Basketball-Reference)
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