Makes, Misses and the Middle Fiddle in Today’s NBA

The Hornets were a paltry 8-for-32 (.250) on treys, a more respectable 26-for-49 (.531) in the paint … accounting for 34 of their 36 “makes” and 81 of their 84 FGA’s.

Boston’s near-50% overall accuracy broke down to 28-45 (.622) in the paint, 12-37 (.324) from distance, and 6-for-11 (.545) in-between.

Through 66 games, the Celtics have out-shot their opponents on 3FG’s .347 - .338, “In the Paint” .576 - .530 as well as “in-between” .397 - .384.

By my count, the C’s 2,631 “makes” from the field along with 594 “trips" to the foul line give them 3,225 Conversions in 6,428 total Possessions … similarly, Opponents have 3,095 (2,518 + 577) successful possessions in 6,436 tries. Coach Udoka’s I-men in Green lead in Conversion Percentage, 502 to .481.

Over their 20-game, 16-4 run, Boston’s advantage in CV% was .524 to .467, with a +5.3 edge in per-game Conversions.

You’ll have to excuse my “Old School Outlook” …

… but today’s competitive basketball is still the same simple game it’s always been, and the key to winning is “stopping” the other team more often than they can stop you.

So it kinda bewilders me how may hoops I have to “jump” through to get an accurate count on possessions – the way basketball statmen have mistreated the “Team Rebound” is sinful as well as confusingly inconvenient.

Rant over !!!