Every season, we tie ourselves is knots trying to figure out if there are any not-so obvious bellwethers for the success of the Boston Celtics.
Give us a small enough sample size and we can convince ourselves that the presence of Kelly Olynyk’s headband or the color of Jayson Tatum’s shoes can, on their own, predict the success of those individual players on a night-to-night basis. Sometimes it feels as if the color of the Celtics jersey is enough to determine the final result.
It is, of course, deeper than that. Crunch the numbers over a larger sample and most of these sartorial predictors get exposed.
But over the past three seasons, there is one very telling, non-apparel-related indicator of Boston’s success: Did the Celtics outscore their opponent during Derrick White’s fourth-quarter floor time? If so, there’s a good chance they won that night.
You see, “Fourth Quarter Derrick” and his knack for winning plays on both ends of the court is a very real thing.
On Tuesday night in Brooklyn, as the Celtics stumbled their way through a turnover-plagued outing against the lowly Nets at the Barclays Center, White channeled some of his familiar fourth-quarter antics. He knocked down two timely 3-pointers. He drew a charge. He swatted Michael Porter Jr. to force a 24-second violation.
White finished with a team-high eight points in the fourth quarter as the Celtics outscored the Nets by 10 and emerged with a 113-99 triumph.
The Celtics are now 67-7 over the past three seasons when they outscore opponents during White’s fourth-quarter floor time. That’s a .905 winning percentage. Boston was 33-1 last season when the team won White’s fourth-quarter time. The C’s are 6-2 this season.
On the flip side, when the Celtics either tie or are outscored during White’s fourth-quarter floor time, they are 40-27 over the past three seasons (.597 winning percentage). That includes a 2-4 mark this season, as White has struggled to have his familiar fourth-quarter impact in the infancy of this new campaign.
Balk if you’d like. We wouldn’t blame you for saying, “Thanks, Captain Obvious: If the Celtics’ starters outscore their opponent in the fourth quarter, there is a very good chance the team wins.” But we ought to know by now: As goes Derrick, so go the Celtics. And his fingerprints were all over getting Boston to the finish line of an otherwise sloppy night in Brooklyn.
Like everything White does, the numbers don’t leap off the page. He didn’t even rank in the top 30 last season for fourth-quarter scoring. But he simply had a knack for big plays in big spots, especially on the road. White did rank fifth in the NBA in fourth-quarter 3-pointers made last season, with 66. Only Stephen Curry, Malik Beasley, Anthony Edwards, and Zach LaVine made more.
This season, White ranks 21st in the NBA in fourth-quarter points (26). He easily leads the NBA with 43 fourth-quarter 3-point attempts (eight more than second-place Grayson Allen), but has only connected on 30.2 percent of those shots. On the bright side, White is sixth in the NBA in fourth-quarter assists with 21 final-frame helpers (with only four turnovers in 139 minutes of floor time).
In an eyesore of a game in Brooklyn on Tuesday night, a rare glimpse of Fourth Quarter Derrick was an encouraging sign, especially as he pulls himself out of an-early season shooting funk. We have a lot of data now, and all signs point to the Celtics’ success when White is at his best in the final frame.