It's not a lie if you believe it

In honor of George Costanza's, "It's not a lie, if you believe it" we present the following numbers.

1. Did you know who has the attempted the most shots (2PT and 3PT) in the NBA this year? Your Boston Celtics with 6,533 attempts. This would explain why that despite shooting (.440) from the field, which is tied for 24th, the Celtics are the 6th highest scoring team in the NBA.

2. In the last 3 years, combining both regular season and playoff records, the Philadelphia 76ers have won 46 times in 238 games while the New England Patriots have won 41 times in 55 games. In order to tie the 76ers level of futility during this 238 game stretch, the Patriots would have to go (5-178, .027) in their next 183 games.

3. In 73 career starts, Joe Kelly has only made it into the 8th inning three times or 4.1% of the time. Kelly averages only 5.6 IP per start. I hope Carson Smith gets healthy real soon.

4. Quick quiz. In the month of March or the last 13 Bruins games, who has scored more goals, Team A or Team B?

Team A. (Bergeron, Eriksson, Pastrnak)

Team B. (Marchand, Krejci, Beleskey, Spooner, Stempniak, Hayes, Connolly, Vatrano, Randell, Ferraro, Chara, Morrow, Trotman, Seidenberg, K. Miller, Liles, Krug, Acciari)

The answer is A with 14 goals. Team B could only muster 13 goals.

5.  Here is how the Celtics fared against playoff teams (the 15 teams currently qualified) and non-playoff teams this year. Would the Celtics be better served to start the playoffs on the road?

SITUATION	W	L	PCT	PF	PA
Playoff teams	16	19	0.457	102.3	102.5
Non-playoff teams	27	11	0.711	109.0	101.6
TOTAL	43	30	0.589	105.8	102.0

Here is how the Celtics have done against the fifteen playoff teams at home and on the road.

SITUATION	W	L	PCT	PF	PA
All Playoff teams - home	9	9	0.500	102.9	101.7
All Playoff teams - away	7	10	0.412	101.6	103.3
TOTAL	16	19	0.457	102.3	102.5

Here is how the Celtics have done against the seven Eastern Conference playoff teams at home and on the road.

SITUATION	W	L	PCT	PF	PA
Eastern Conference playoff teams - home	5	7	0.417	101.7	104.7
Eastern Conference playoff teams - away	5	5	0.500	96.9	96.2
TOTAL	10	12	0.455	99.5	100.8

Here is how the Celtics have done against the eight Western Conference playoff teams at home and on the road.

SITUATION	W	L	PCT	PF	PA
Western Conference playoff teams - home	4	4	0.500	110.5	108.6
Western Conference playoff teams - away	2	3	0.400	101.4	100.0
TOTAL	6	7	0.462	107.0	105.3