Pistons Baffle Celtics and Statisticians Alike

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February 16,2012 – 12:36am

Right now we’re30,000 feet above Syracuse, NY. Seems like a fitting place to lament a gamelost by missing free throws.
The Celtics homecourt, double-digit loss to Detroit (just the 12^th in the 183 homegames of the New Big Three Era), ends an ugly 7 days that has the green fourgames out in the division, and three games out of home-court in theplayoffs.  Moreover, the 15-13 recordlooks even shakier when it comes with a 19-9 home/road schedule disparity as weapproach mid-season.  The opportunity formake-goods is plentiful of course on the road, but let’s start with this littlegem…
…the Celtics nowplay their next five games on the road against, wait for it, five teams thathave already beaten them this year…in Boston.
A common themeduring the stretch in which the Celtics won 10 of 13, was defense.  How good was it?  CELTICS DEFENSE JAN. 23-FEB. 11(9-3)
PointsAllowed        82.2*DefensiveFG%       .391**Defensive3FG%     .256***
*Improved from 5th to 1st in the NBA**Improved from 12th to 1st in the NBA***Improved from 7th to 1st in the NBA
Enter thePistons. 8-22, on the second night of a back-to-back, shooting under 43% fromthe floor. Their 87.4 points per game 28^th in the NBA, only NewOrleans (5-23) and Charlotte (3-25) have scored fewer points.
Two and halfhours later, the Pistons came within a garbage time bucket of ending theCeltics 25-game streak of holding teams under 100 points (the longest suchstreak in the NBA in seven years).  Howrare an offensive night was it?  Rodney Stuckeymade 11 free throws and Ben Gordon made 4 three-pointers. Only Carmelo Anthony(13, 4 on Opening Day) had done that against the Celtics this year.  Entering the week, no one had made more thanten shots against Boston this year.  KobeBryant and Pau Gasol did it last Thursday, Greg Monroe, exploiting the firstgame missed by Kevin Garnett this year, had 11 on Wednesday.
And if thatwasn’t strange enough. Detroit entered the game last in the league in the thoroughlyrandom but still significant free-throw defense.    Teamshad shot a league best 78% against Detroit from the line this year. TheCeltics, a 76% free throwing team, went 19-32, missing 13 free throws in a10-point loss.  That…is the law ofaverages.
But Wednesdaynight’s game was notable for the scoring outburst of Rajon Rondo.  After tying his career high with 32 againstthe Bulls on a triple-double Sunday, the Celtics point guard and all-star snubwent 15-27 from the floor on his way to his first career 35-point game.  Sitting on 27 though early in the 3^rd,it looked like he was headed for a 40-point night, which would have beenstatistically fascinating on several levels.
The first, thatit’s been six years and 466 regular season games since a Celtic scored 40.
The second, thatit wasn’t Ray Allen or Paul Pierce making the charge at it.
The third, thelast 40-point game by a Celtic, was Paul Pierce’s 50 point game.
And the fourth,that tonight was the 6^th anniversary of that game, February 15,2006.
(Now before wego any further, I’ve been tracking this stat for several years now, andwhenever I tweet it, a small but vocal number of people start jumping up anddown about Pierce’s 41 in Game 7 against the Cavs in’08, and Allen’sunforgettable 51 in Game 6 against the Bulls a year later.  So again, it’s a regular season streak.  The NBA record by the way, is 508 straightheld by the Vancouver/Memphis Grizzlies from 2000 to 2006.)
It’s afascinating streak.  It was the 23^rdtime since the Pierce 50 that a Celtic has gotten to 35 points (the 13^thtime in the Era), but no one’s been able to get the final five.

CELTICS TOP SCORING GAMES – NEW BIG 3 ERA

39 –PIERCE VS. TORONTO – JANUARY 12, 200937 –PIERCE @ SEATTLE – DECEMBER 27, 200737 –PIERCE @ CHICAGO – MARCH 17, 200936 –PIERCE VS. TORONTO – NOVEMBER 10, 200836 –R. ALLEN @ TORONTO – JANUARY 11, 200936 –PIERCE VS. MINNESOTA – FEBRUARY 1, 200936 –PIERCE VS. MIAMI – MARCH 18, 200935 –R. ALLEN VS. PORTLAND – JANUARY 16, 200835 –PIERCE VS. SAN ANTONIO – FEBRUARY 10, 200835 –R. ALLEN @ INDIANA – DECEMBER 7, 200835 –PIERCE @ ATLANTA – JANUARY 28, 201035 –ALLEN @ MIAMI – NOVEMBER 11, 201035 – RONDO VS. DETROIT – FEBRUARY 15,2012

CELTICS TOP SCORING GAMES – SINCE LAST 40 POINT GAME

39 –PIERCE @ L.A. LAKERS – FEBRUARY 26, 200639 -PIERCE @ NEW YORK – NOVEMBER 18, 200639 –PIERCE VS. TORONTO – JANUARY 12, 200938 –PIERCE VS. MIAMI – MARCH 1, 200638 –PIERCE VS. DENVER – DECEMBER 15, 200637 –PIERCE @ PORTLAND – FEBRUARY 23, 200637 –PIERCE @ SEATTLE – DECEMBER 27, 200737 –PIERCE @ CHICAGO – MARCH 17, 200936 –PIERCE VS. DENVER – MARCH 12, 200636 –PIERCE VS. PHOENIX – DECEMBER 8, 200636 –PIERCE VS. TORONTO – NOVEMBER 10, 200836 –R. ALLEN @ TORONTO – JANUARY 11, 200936 –PIERCE VS. MINNESOTA – FEBRUARY 1, 200936 –PIERCE VS. MIAMI – MARCH 18, 200935 –PIERCE VS. CHARLOTTE - NOVEMBER 8, 200635 –SZCZERBIAK VS. CHARLOTTE- NOVEMBER 8, 200635 –PIERCE @ CHARLOTTE- DECEMBER 16, 200635 –R. ALLEN VS. PORTLAND – JANUARY 16, 200835 –PIERCE VS. SAN ANTONIO – FEBRUARY 10, 200835 –R. ALLEN @ INDIANA – DECEMBER 7, 200835 –PIERCE @ ATLANTA – JANUARY 28, 201035 –ALLEN @ MIAMI – NOVEMBER 11, 201035 – RONDO VS. DETROIT – FEBRUARY 15,2012
The parable of the streak, of course, is that it hasn't been for a lack of star power. The Celtics have won over 60% of their games in the six years since and nearly 70% of the games they've played in the New Big Three Era.
And the night Paul Pierce had his 50? The Celtics lost that game, as they did tonight.
Rondo didn’t endthe 40-point streak, but did end the not-nearly-as-glamorous six year run of noCeltics making 15 shots in a game, last done by Pierce a month after his 40point game against Carmelo Anthony and Denver in March of 2006.  That game, by the way, was the last gasp forthe ’06 Celtics. It got them to 29-36 and the fringe of the playoff race.  From then on they went 6-13 to end their four-yearrun of playoff berths   (It was also thenight of the Sopranos season premiere on HBO, that featured your two favoriteannouncers in the background of a pizzeria mob hit. #UselessTrivia)
For the record,no Celtic has made more than Rondo’s 15 shots in a regulation game sinceAntoine Walker (volume shooter) made 17 in a Sunday afternoon game in Torontonine years ago.

MOST FIELD GOALS IN A GAME – SINCE 2001

17 –WALKER @ TORONTO – MARCH 2, 200317 –PIERCE VS. CLEVELAND – FEBRUARY 15, 200616 –PIERCE VS. DENVER – JANUARY 24, 200315 –PIERCE @ WASHINGTON – MARCH 11, 200215 –WALKER VS NEW YORK – MARCH 5, 200315 –PIERCE VS. DENVER – MARCH 12, 200615 – RONDO VS. DETROIT – FEBRUARY 15,201214 –WALKER @ NEW YORK – DECEMBER 11, 2001*14 –PIERCE @ NEW YORK – NOVEMBER 2, 200214 –PIERCE VS. ATLANTA – NOVEMBER 22, 200214 –PIERCE VS. PHOENIX – JANUARY 28, 200514 –DAVIS @ ATLANTA – APRIL 1, 200514 –DAVIS @ DETROIT – NOVEMBER 15, 200514 –DAVIS @ SACRAMENTO – DECEMBER 30, 200514-  PIERCE VS. PHOENIX – FEBRUARY 1, 200614 –PIERCE @ PORTLAND – FEBRUARY 23, 200614 –JEFFERSON @ ORLANDO – APRIL 15, 200714 –PIERCE VS. MIAMI – MARCH 18, 2009

MOST FIELD GOALS IN A GAME – NEW BIG THREE ERA

15 – RONDO VS. DETROIT – FEBRUARY 15,201214 –PIERCE VS. MIAMI – MARCH 18, 200913 –GARNETT VS. DETROIT – MARCH 5, 200813 –R. ALLEN @ INDIANA – DECEMBER 7, 200813 –PIERCE VS. TORONTO – JANUARY 12, 200913 –PIERCE VS. MINNESOTA – FEBRUARY 1, 200913 –RONDO @ PHOENIX – FEBRUARY 22, 200913 –PIERCE @ CHICAGO – MARCH 17, 200913 –GARNETT VS. PHOENIX – NOVEMBER 6, 200913 –ALLEN @ MIAMI – NOVEMBER 11, 201013 –ALLEN VS. SAN ANTONIO – JANUARY 5, 2011
And so theCeltics embark on the daunting road portion of their schedule.  14 of the next 19 away from Boston.  And we reach the end of another statisticalmanifesto, and the first NBA-related piece written in the last week withabsolutely no mention of Jeremy Lin.
Wait, does thatcount?
Damn.
Please forgive my late-night Lin-discretion.