2023 Playoffs: East First Round | Celtics (2) vs. Hawks (7)

Series preview: Celtics look to flex might against Hawks in first round

Breaking down the Boston-Atlanta matchup with 3 things to watch, 1 X-factor and a series prediction.

Led by star swingman Jayson Tatum, the Celtics have been equally adept at offense and defense this season.

Though the Miami Heat were just not the same team this year, the Boston Celtics are probably happy not to face their South Beach nemesis for the third time in the last four postseasons. Instead, they’ll open the 2023 playoffs against the Atlanta Hawks, who went on the road and beat the Heat in the AT&T Play-In Tournament. The last time these two teams met in the playoffs (2016 first round), Al Horford was on the Hawks while Marcus Smart is the only Celtics player who remains from that series.

No matter the opponent, the Celtics would be the heavy favorite in this series. They’re the defending Eastern Conference champs and, statistically, they’ve been the best team in the league this season. The Hawks have been terrific offensively over the last couple of months and will have a chance any night that the Celtics aren’t shooting well. But Boston is the better team on both ends of the floor and has, arguably, the two best players in the series. Tougher challenges lay ahead.


Regular-season results:

Nov. 16: Celtics 126, Hawks 101
March 11: Celtics 134, Hawks 125
April 9: Celtics 120, Hawks 114


With the Bucks, Celtics and 76ers separating themselves in the East, can any lower seed dethrone them come playoff time?

3 things to watch

1. Targeting Trae Young. The Celtics’ offense can be great with ball movement, but they’re also a team that will relentlessly attack the opponents’ weakest defender. There might not be a defender in this league with a bigger target on his chest than Trae Young. We can be sure that whomever Young is guarding will be setting ball screens for Jayson Tatum (who will also set screens for that guy) in an effort to get Young switched onto the guy who ranked sixth in total isolation possessions this season. How well the Hawks scramble out of those situations could determine how long this series lasts.

2. Atlanta’s second chances. The Heat ranked fourth in defensive rebounding percentage in the regular season … only to get destroyed on the glass by the Hawks in the 7-8 Play-In game. The Celtics led the league in defensive rebound percentage in the regular season, but the Hawks’ 19.0 second-chance points per game in the season series were the most for any Boston opponent. One of those games was the last of the season when both teams were resting four of their five starters. But Atlanta ranked second in offensive rebounding percentage after the All-Star break, with Onyeka Okongwu (14.2%) and Clint Capela (12.7%) both ranking in the top 12 among individuals.

3. Al Horford’s 3-point shooting. Over his previous four seasons (2018-19 through 2021-22), Horford shot 35.1% from 3-point range. This season: 44.6%, best among 103 players with at least 300 attempts. The Celtics want to shoot a lot of 3s (they ranked second in 3-point rate in the regular season), Horford will often be the guy left open after a drive-and-kick sequence, and if he can continue shooting this well, Boston will be extremely potent offensively.


X-Factor

Celtics center Robert Williams III is still working himself into form as the 2023 playoffs begin.

Robert Williams III. Williams played in only 35 games this season, including only seven of the Celtics’ final 18, having also missed seven games in last year’s playoffs. The Celtics were at their best, especially defensively, with Williams on the floor this season and were especially strong (plus-15.9 points per 100 possessions) when he played alongside Horford on the frontline. This matchup may favor lineups with five shooters (Horford at the five), but the Celtics may really need Williams on the glass against the Hawks’ frontline. They’ll certainly need him healthy going forward should they get through this series.


Number to know

3 — The Celtics ranked second in both offensive and defensive efficiency in the regular season, becoming just the third team in the 27 seasons for which we have play-by-play data to rank in the top three on both ends of the floor. The other two were the 2014-15 Warriors (second and first) and the 2016-17 Warriors (first and second), which both won the NBA championship.

The Celtics got off to a hot start, with a ridiculously efficient offense as they won 18 of their first 22 games. But, even if we count the games after that 18-4 start, they still ranked in the top five on both ends of the floor (fifth offensivelythird defensively).

The other two times (over these last 27 seasons) that the Celtics ranked in the top five on both ends of the floor were 2008-09 (when they lost in the conference semis) and 2019-20 (lost in the conference finals). While the other two teams that have ranked in the top three on both ends won the championship, only five of the other 22 that have ranked in the top five on both ends (since 1996-97) have gone on to win the title.


The Pick

The Hawks have had a potent offense under coach Quin Snyder, and they were able to grab a bunch of offensive boards against the Celtics this season. But Boston still won all three meetings, scoring more than 125 points per 100 possessions (the best mark for any Hawks opponent) over the three. The Celtics don’t have any weak spots (either offensively or defensively) in their rotation, they execute well on both ends of the floor, and Tatum is a star who was absolutely terrific through the first three rounds of the playoffs last year. Celtics in four.

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John Schuhmann is a senior stats analyst for NBA.com. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on Twitter.

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