Seven* numbers to watch down the stretch

Boston's small red flag, Phoenix's schedule, a Rocket's failure to launch, and more

We’re gearing up for the season's final quarter (and my Q3 awards are coming soon!). There’s a lot of basketball left to be played. Here are a few things I’ll be tracking.

70.5%

The entire Celtics’ starting lineup is in the 80th percentile or higher for Estimated Plus/Minus. Four players are in the top decile (Jrue Holiday is the lone exception).

That’s ridiculous! Minnesota and Denver are the only other teams even close to those benchmarks. It’s not a surprise that Boston has steamrolled the rest of the league like the Pee-Wee football player who hit puberty ahead of schedule.

If Boston has one weakness, it’s their defensive rebounding against top opponents. Boston is 10-5 against teams with a top-10 net rating this season, a very good mark. But they have the fourth-worst defensive rebounding percentage in the league against that set of opponents — just 70.5%. They are a top-10 defensive rebounding team against the rest of the league.

Rebounding was cited as one of the few preseason concerns with this roster, yet in general, they’ve held up well on the glass. The playoffs are a different beast. Depending on how the matchups shake out, Boston could have to play New York and Milwaukee back-to-back, two teams who could exploit them with bully-ball on the boards.

This isn’t a glaring red flag; Boston is fantastic at nearly everything else. But for the last quarter of the season, I’ll be watching to see if the Celtics can ratchet up the rebounding against the league’s best foes.

114.1

In the eight games since the Mavs traded for PJ Washington and Daniel Gafford, their defensive rating has been 114.1, good for 14th in the league. The team has gone 5-3 over that span, and while that’s bolstered by only allowing 93 points to the Spurs, they also held the Thunder to just 111 points and the Suns to 113 before getting blasted by the Celtics. For a squad that ranked 21st in defense before the trades, that’s an upgrade.

I’ve long maintained that the Mavericks are better set up for playoff success than regular-season wins. Luka Doncic is an all-time playoff performer, and Kyrie has had plenty of postseason success himself. If the team’s defense can hold its own, the Mavs will be the lower-seed team nobody wants to face.

Why is this happening? The new additions have a lot to do with it. Washington is a more versatile defender than the departed Grant Williams, while Gafford has bolstered the team’s rim protection as a high-minutes backup center. (In case you’re wondering, they haven’t benefited from opponent three-point shooting luck, which remained the same before and after the trades.)

Oft-injured Maxi Kleber, quietly, has been shooting and defending better of late, too:

He’s closed at center in several recent games, a staple wrinkle that Dallas used to try more often. His ability to play at a high level, even in short spurts, unlocks some of Dallas’ most dangerous lineups and gives coach Jason Kidd far more optionality.

And Dante Exum is back! One of the season’s happiest early surprises, the staunch Aussie will only bolster the team’s point-of-attack defense when he rounds back into game shape.

Do not sleep on Dallas (even if that loss to Boston was ugly).

.576

That’s the winning percentage of the teams Phoenix still has to play, by far the hardest remaining schedule in the league.

The Suns are the fifth seed today; they are also just 1.5 games ahead of the eighth-place Dallas Mavericks, with the surging Lakers and Warriors not far behind.

I believed that a Booker/Durant/Beal/Grayson Allen squad (and yes, Allen deserves mention despite a “down” February in which he still shot 40% from deep) would be one of the top teams in the West — I had them second in the conference in my season-preview haikus.

But injuries have devastated the team, and most of Phoenix’s ballyhooed minimum signings have been worth every penny they’ve been paid. The Suns have been the worst fourth-quarter team in the league by so much it’s a joke; their -14.7 net rating is more than twice as bad as the 29th-place Heat (more on that below!).

With the schedule they have, there’s a very, very real world where the Suns fall to seventh or worse. And once you’re in the play-in, anything can happen.

If the Suns bounce in the first round, that’s a debacle. If they fail to make the playoffs? We’ll be looking back at the Durant and Beal trades with as much disdain as the infamous Nets trade for Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce — and the price for KD and Beal was steeper.

The team has looked good when all three of its stars are together, but Beal is seemingly never at 100%, and Durant and Booker have lengthy injury histories, too. What are the odds this team can glue itself together long enough to make a months-long playoff run?

0

A healthy Jalen Green played 0 minutes in three straight fourth quarters recently for a Houston team ostensibly still fighting for a play-in spot. A report from The Athletic detailed how Green has become “frustrated” with his role.

I didn’t like Houston’s offseason moves partially because I worried it would stunt the development of its younger players. While that’s proven untrue for Alperen Sengun, who has flourished with Fred VanVleet as a pick-and-roll partner, Green’s step back this year has been more noticeable than his step-back.

Green’s decision-making is slightly improved, and he’s been a surprisingly decent rebounder. The defense is bad, but better than before.

But these are all micro improvements. His main selling point, scoring, has never developed. Green is a below-average shotmaker from everywhere on the floor and has been for his entire career. In fact, he’s somehow become less efficient each year, even as his standing in the pecking order has diminished. That’s an ugly sign.

He never cuts around Sengun when the latter has the ball, preferring to loaf around and wait until he touches the ball again. And despite a lightning first step, Green has a shaky handle, so he can’t blow past defenders with the ease you’d expect. His jumper’s prettiness belies its accuracy, and he’s shooting just 59% at the rim — an atrocious number for someone as athletic as Green. He takes weird, roundabout angles to the rim that further diminish any advantages he creates:

Before the season, I fretted that Sengun would find himself in coach Ime Udoka’s doghouse, but it turns out I picked the wrong pooch. The team invested a lot in Green, the second overall pick in 2021, and he’ll undoubtedly continue to play big minutes — this season. But the Rockets are filled with young talent, including this year’s rookies, the even more athletic Amen Thompson and sharpshooting wing Cam Whitmore. If Green doesn’t show marked improvement in the next 23 games, he may find himself riding pine next season — or even on another team entirely.