The Boston Celtics have been notoriously branded as one of the most three-point-reliant teams in the NBA. However, Derrick White reiterates that this is far from the truth.
On the latest episode of the White Noise Podcast, the versatile 3-and-D guard explained how the Boston Celtics’ emphasis on the three-ball is a way to open up various attacking opportunities, not as their end-all, be-all.
“Yeah, we do shoot a lot of threes,” White admitted. “The volume is record-setting, and we’ve never seen it before, but we had a team where spacing was everything for us. And when we created space and we drove, we attacked, we were creating those two-on-ones, and we were getting looks that every team in the NBA would take, especially from the shooters that we had shooting the shots.”
“Sometimes, yeah, there are bad shots, but there’s bad shots at the hoop, too. Nobody seems to care about those. There’s bad shots at mid-range, there’s bad shots from post-ups, like, there’s bad shots everywhere. That’s basketball. But it’s not like every possession that we’re getting a bad three,” he continued.
Boston Celtics News: Derrick White reveals ultimate validation from Golden State Warriors star
In the same podcast episode, Derrick White shared that he recently received praise from Stephen Curry about his improved jump shot, which made him feel validated.
“Steph came up to me and was like, ‘What have you been doing? This is unbelievable. I respect your work!’ If Steph says I’m doing something right, I must be doing something right,” White said.
In the 2024-25 campaign, White averaged 16.4 points, 4.5 rebounds, 4.8 assists, and 1.1 blocks on 44/38/84 shooting splits across 76 regular season starts. Since the conclusion of the 2021-22 campaign, the Boston Celtics guard has never shot below 38.0 percent from three-point land in the regular season.
