The Celtics are about to get a clean look at one of the NBA’s roughest early-season shooting teams, and that makes Monday’s matchup with the Bulls a little more revealing than the record books might suggest.
Chicago has opened the season ice cold from three, hitting just 22.6% of its attempts through three games - the worst mark in the league. Even with that kind of struggle, the Bulls have kept firing, averaging 41.3 three-point attempts per game.
The volume is there. The touch hasn’t been.
Their latest loss made that gap obvious. In Saturday’s 124-120 defeat to Washington, Chicago went 12-for-43 from deep.
Rookie Caleb Wilson was a force anyway, piling up 30 points and 14 rebounds, but he went just 1-for-9 from long range. That’s the kind of night that can keep a team in a game and still leave it searching for answers.
Boston has its own confidence boost heading into this one after bouncing back from its season-opening loss with a 107-103 win over the Knicks. Jayson Tatum carried the scoring load with 36 points, Neemias Queta chipped in 15 points and three blocks, and Jordan Walsh helped slow Jalen Brunson down to 19 points.
That gives the Celtics a very specific test on Monday: can they make Chicago live with the shots it’s missing, without opening up easy lanes to the rim? If Boston stays disciplined on closeouts and keeps the Bulls working for clean looks from outside, it can turn Chicago’s biggest weakness into the central problem of the night. But if the Celtics get too eager jumping at every fake, the Bulls could make it ugly around the basket instead.
There’s still a warning label on all this, of course. Three games is a tiny sample, and nobody is ready to hand out a season-long verdict on Chicago’s shooting.
But the Bulls have also shown enough offense to stay dangerous, averaging 128 points allowed per game through those first three contests. That puts pressure on both sides of the ball: Chicago has to shoot better, and it has to find stops against a Boston group that just proved it can close a tight game with Tatum taking charge.
So while the headline is simple - hot Celtics, cold Bulls - the real interest is whether Boston can turn the three-point line into the night’s loudest storyline.
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