The Boston Celtics had their offensive rating fall more than six points during last year’s Finals compared to the first three founds of the playoffs.
During the offseason, the main focus of the Boston coaching staff was revamping the offense.
“The one thing we looked at was: What were the best clutch offensive teams running?” Joe Mazzulla told ESPN. “We just tried to find the best clutch offenses and what they did and kind of studied that.”
The discussions often revealed the principles of more spacing, more ball movement and more off-ball screening action.
“We have a really smart team and experienced team and they know we had to reinvent ourselves,” Mazzulla said.
“Guys have done a great job buying into that. Now we’re just learning about the different ways teams are going to guard us and how we can adjust to that.”
Boston is currently scoring 120.8 points per game, which would be the highest total in the league in 30 years.