Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, USA, February 28, 2022.
Brendan McDermid Reuters
Russia’s ETFs continued their downturns on Tuesday as sanctions continued to pile up against Russia.
Shares of VanEck Russia ETF fell 12.2% to 70.9% below their October high of $ 33.39.
Meanwhile, the iShares MSCI Russia ETF also fell about 8%. He finished down 27.9% on Monday.
Russia’s stock market in Moscow remained closed on Tuesday. It closed on Monday, although Russian ETFs continued to trade in the United States
On Tuesday, BlackRock, which manages the iShares family of ETFs, issued a notice to investors announcing it was suspending the creation of new shares in the fund.
“The liquidity of Russian securities and their currency has declined significantly. In light of these circumstances, the iShares MSCI Russia ETF has temporarily suspended the creation of new shares until further notice,” it said.
BlackRock warns investors that ERUS may fail to meet its investment objective, may experience increased tracking error, may receive significant premiums or discounts on net asset value (NAV) and / or may have spreads between supply and demand, “wider than its historical average”, added in connection with the purchase of shares on the secondary market.
On Tuesday, Visa and Mastercard blocked “many financial institutions” in Russia from their networks in response to government sanctions against Russian entities, preventing Russians from using their credit cards.
The move comes after the European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada pledged to remove selected Russian banks from SWIFT or the Global Interbank Financial Telecommunications Society, separating them from much of the global financial system.
Tori Barron is a Bristol-based writer and editor of ESPN.com. After retiring from playing lacrosse at UConn, the local DC decided to try her hand at writing about people who play sports.
Serena Williams is no stranger to the catwalk, as she has modeled the shows of her own fashion line in the past. But Monday was the first time the 23-time big champion has walked for a big luxury brand during Fashion Month.
On the first day of Paris Fashion Week, Williams paid tribute to his longtime fashion collaborator, the late designer and founder of Off-White, Virgil Ablo.
Off-White, a Milan-based luxury brand, honored Abloh, who died in November 2021 at the age of 41 after a private battle with rare cancer, while presenting his fall 2022 collection – Abloh’s latest contribution to the brand.
The star-studded show (Kendall Jenner, Joan Smalls, Gigi and Bella Hadid, Carly Kloss, Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford also graced the catwalk for the occasion) was split in two, with Serena wearing part of the “ready-to-wear collection” for the upcoming season in the first portion.
After the show, Williams went to Instagram to express his gratitude for the opportunity to honor his friend.
Williams has long been Ablo’s muse, with the tennis star as the inspiration for the designer’s first Nike collection in 2018. The collection, called “Queen” (naturally), included Ablo’s perception of the classic tennis dress with asymmetrical color-blocking, classic Off – White text and a tulle tutu skirt. “I was trying to embody her spirit and bring something fascinating and fresh to tennis,” he said in an official statement at the start. Williams wore the dress in different colors at the US Open 2018.
In 2019, she wore neon yellow sneakers designed by Abloh while attending the Met Gala. She soon rocked Abloh’s original at the 2019 French Open. and the “goddess.”
When Ablo died, Williams was one of a group of celebrities who paid tribute to their favorite designer. “Words cannot express the grief I feel from the death of my friend @virgilabloh,” she wrote on Instagram. “I will always be grateful that I had the opportunity to witness such greatness, such genius and feel the warmth of his smile. It was an honor for me to stand by him. He illuminated every room he entered. Let his beloved family and friends find comfort in knowing how deeply his art has influenced our culture and all of us. I’ll miss you.”
Ukraine’s 20 athletes for the Paralympic Winter Games are expected to be in Beijing in time for Friday’s opening ceremony, IPC spokesman Craig Spence told the Associated Press on Tuesday.
Spence said the team was heading to the Chinese capital and could arrive as early as Wednesday.
The arrival was questionable after Russia invaded Ukraine last week. The International Paralympic Committee is due to meet on Wednesday and may impose additional sanctions on Russian athletes or exclude them from the Paralympic Games.
Russian athletes will compete in Beijing as an RPC, abbreviated by Russia’s Paralympic Committee, as a result of a state-sponsored doping scandal and cover-up of the 2014 Sochi Olympics.
Belarus is also expected to be sanctioned by the IPC board for its involvement in the war. Belarusians may be forced to compete as neutral athletes in Beijing, as can Russia.
Russian athletes at the Winter Olympics last month competed as the ROC, abbreviated by the Russian Olympic Committee, over the doping scandal.
The International Olympic Committee, which has repeatedly failed to forcibly punish Russia for its doping history, on Monday forced dozens of sports governing bodies to exclude Russian athletes and officials from international events.
The IOC, which left the decision to others, said the action was needed to “protect the integrity of global sporting events and the safety of all participants”.
The IOC has also given sports organizations a way to circumvent expulsions.
“Where this is not possible in the short term for organizational or legal reasons, the IOC … urges international sports federations and sporting event organizers around the world to do their utmost to ensure that no athlete or sports officer Russia or Belarus will not be allowed to participate under the name Russia or Belarus, “the IOC said.
Russia is expected to have 71 athletes participating in the Paralympic Games. About 650 athletes from 49 delegations, including Ukraine, are expected to attend the Games.
The Beijing Winter Olympics, which closed on February 20th, brought together 2,900 athletes from 91 delegations. The Paralympic Games end on March 13.
Russian politicians who voted to recognize the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk now say they regret their decision and have condemned it. Vladimir Putinthe invasion.
Dissent against the war is growing not only on the streets Russiawith thousands arrested during protests, but also in parliament, where dissent against the leader is rare.
Three members of the Communist Party, which usually remains loyal to Putin on key issues, have spoken out against the war, saying they do not realize what they are voting for.
Vyacheslav Markhaev, a senator from Siberia, writes further Facebook that Putin “hid plans to start a full-scale war with our closest neighbor.”
His remarks were followed by two of his party members who condemned the invasion.
Vyacheslav Markhaev, a senator from Siberia, said he did not realize that Vladimir Putin would launch an invasion
Oleg Smolen said he was “shocked” by the invasion, saying military force should only be used as a last resort
Mikhail Matveev of Samara also called for an end to the war, saying he was “voting for peace, not war”
Oleg Smolen said he was “shocked” by the invasion, saying: “As a Russian intellectual, I am convinced that military force should be used in politics only as a last resort.
“I could not vote for the recognition of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics without surrendering myself.”
Mikhail Matveev of Samara also called for an end to the war, saying in an already deleted tweet: “I voted for peace, not war. “Russia should become a shield so that Donbass is not bombed, and Kyiv should not be bombed.”
Markhayev said members of the Russian Duma, the lower house of the Federal Assembly, were unaware that the vote would lead to a full-scale invasion.
He wrote: “It is sad to watch what is happening around Ukraine and it hurts the soul to imagine where our world and the contribution of the whole world can go.
“We needed the recognition of the independence of the Republic of DPR and LPR to protect them from complete extinction. It was thought that this could develop as an opportunity to continue negotiations and find new compromises to resolve all sharp angles.
Markhaev said members of the Russian Duma, the lower house of the Federal Assembly, did not know that the vote would lead to a full-scale invasion
“To my great regret, the whole Campaign for the recognition of DNR and LNR had a completely different idea and plan, which was initially hidden and as a result we were in a state of full-scale confrontation and war between the two. countries.
“It is very painful to lose colleagues, colleagues, ordinary young and promising boys. It is very painful to look into the eyes of parents, children and their relatives. ‘
He continued: “I condemn the unjustified strategy of the West, their policy of double standards, the pursuit of their own interests by changing the rule of law in countries that do not suit them, the conquest of new territories under false slogans to protect democracy.
“I also condemn the Russian leadership, which has started using the same methods of double standards. Under the auspices of the recognition of DNR and LNR, we have hidden plans to start a full-scale war with our closest neighbor. “
Many have been detained, according to local media, and one woman lost consciousness during the arrest, Nova Gazeta reports.
The human rights group OVD-Info, which monitors political arrests, has already reported 6,440 detainees in anti-war demonstrations in the country since February 24.
The online petition to end the war, which began shortly after the invasion was announced on Thursday, garnered more than 1 million signatures, making it the most supported online petition in Russia in recent years.
Since the first day of Thursday’s attack, Russians in Moscow, St. Petersburg and dozens of other cities have taken to the streets to protest – only to be quickly and often brutally detained by police.
On Monday, the human rights group OVD-Info, which monitors political arrests, counted at least 350 detained protesters in 13 Russian cities.
More than 6,000 people have been detained in the last five days of protests, according to ATS-Info.
Telegram videos show protesters sitting on the floor, applauding and chanting “no to war”, while others show police taking protesters away
In an attempt to stifle critical voices, Russian authorities have restricted access to Facebook, which has played an important role in fueling dissent. Internet users also report problems accessing Twitter.
Russian officials have also pressured the media to cover the invasion in strict accordance with the official line, and have complained about reports describing Russia’s attack on Ukraine as an “invasion” or a “war” as false.
The website of Current Time, a Russian television channel launched by US-funded Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty that criticizes the Kremlin, became unavailable on Sunday after the channel announced it had received a notification from the authorities.
“I have two sons and I do not want to give them to this bloody monster,” 48-year-old Dmitry Maltsev, who joined the rally in St. Petersburg, told the Associated Press. “War is a tragedy for all of us.”
Protests also took place in Belarus, where more than 500 people were detained on Sunday, according to the country’s most prominent human rights group.
The Viasna human rights center said demonstrations had taken place in at least 12 cities, including Minsk, the capital. Protesters placed flowers on a growing pile in front of the Ukrainian embassy.
The leader of the self-proclaimed separatist region in Donetsk, Denis Pushilin, said he expected his forces to surround the port city of Mariupol on Tuesday, adding in a television interview that the town of Volnovakha – halfway between Mariupol and Donetsk – was almost completely surrounded.
“Our task today is to surround Mariupol,” he said.
Pushilin claims, without offering any evidence, that nationalist elements in Mariupol are terrorizing the civilian population and using it as a human shield. The city has a population of about 400,000 people.
Separately, Deputy People’s Militia Deputy Chief Eduard Basurin said the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), along with Russian forces, would organize humanitarian corridors to allow civilians to leave Mariupol.
The corridors will be open until Wednesday, he said.
Basurin said several cities in the region have already fallen into the hands of the DNR militia.
Vadim Boychenko, the mayor of Mariupol, said on Ukrainian television that residential areas had been shelled for five days – with heavy artillery, rockets and planes.
“There are many wounded, dead locals, women, children.
“But today the best sons of their homeland on the borders of our city are doing everything not to give Mariupol,” said Boychenko.
“They destroyed important infrastructure, there is no electricity in the city, no heat. We are fighting to [the] the last bullet. “
Workers in Target’s stores and distribution centers in places like New York, where competition for recruitment and hiring is fiercest, can earn starting salaries of up to $ 24 an hour this year.
The Minneapolis-based retailer said on Monday it would accept minimum wages ranging from $ 15 to $ 24 an hour, with the highest pay being hired in the most competitive markets. He currently pays a universal starting salary of $ 15 per hour.
The new starting salary range is part of the company’s plan to spend an additional $ 300 million on its workforce this year, which will also include wider and faster access to health care for its part-time workers.
“The market has changed,” Target CEO Brian Cornell told the Associated Press. “We want to continue to be a leader in the industry.”
Target set a new marker for the retail industry back in 2017 when it announced it would increase hourly wages to $ 15 by 2020. But US labor market dynamics changed during the pandemic, with many employers facing a sharp shortage of workers. And many of Target’s rivals now pay a minimum of $ 15 an hour or more.
Target, which has about 1,900 stores and 350,000 employees in the United States, noted that its turnover is now actually lower than before the pandemic. The retailer also said it had exceeded its target of hiring 100,000 seasonal workers in its stores and 30,000 in the nationwide supply chain during the 2021 holiday season – big companies looking to lure workers during the 2021 holiday season, do whatever they could bring candidates. Amazon, Walmart and Macy’s were among the many offerings unprecedented salaries and signing bonuseshealth benefits and even reimbursement of training costs.
But Target realized that there needed to be an even more localized approach to wages. He said he was still doing his analysis and declined to name the areas that would receive the highest starting salaries.
When Target first announced in 2017 that it would pay $ 15 an hour by 2020, it was one of the first major retailers to do so. But during the pandemic, a number of rivals such as Best Buy followed suit, some surpassing Target. Costco raised its minimum hourly wage for workers from $ 16 to $ 17 last fall. Amazon’s starting salary is $ 15 per hour, and the average national starting salary of the e-commerce giant for transport and performance jobs is $ 18 per hour.
Amazon chief says hiring remains ‘challenge’
06:11
Craft chain Hobby Lobby on January 1stincrease the hourly wage of full-time workers to $ 18.50 per hour for full-time workers from January 1. The 49-year-old raised its full-time minimum hourly wage to $ 17 in October 2020, earning part-time workers $ 13.
Last fall, Walmart raised its minimum wage to $ 12, from the $ 11 hourly base it established in 2018. The company also raised hourly wages for more than 565,000 employees in the store by at least a dollar.
Labor shortages continue
Many retailers say they are struggling to find workers. According to a recent survey of more than 100 large retailers with annual revenues of between $ 500 million and more than $ 20 billion, 96% say they have trouble finding employees in the store. A survey conducted by global consulting firm Korn Ferry in January also found that 88% said it was difficult to find workers at the distribution center.
This demand for workers is constantly raising wages, especially for lower-income workers. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, wages among the poorest a quarter of workers jumped 5.8 percent in January from a year ago. That’s twice the profit for the highest-paid quarter.
In January, the average wage of retail workers, excluding managers, jumped 7.1 percent from a year earlier to $ 19.24 an hour. This is faster than the profits before the pandemic. In January 2020, the wages of retail workers increased by 4.2% compared to the previous year. In January 2017, it increased by only 1.7% compared to the previous year.
If the first two months of 2022 felt like a controllable ramp for annual streaming offers, be well prepared: the gateways are about to open. With March come major editions from almost every streaming service – from Bridgerton in Netflix to Atlanta of Hulu, from Time to win on HBO Max to Moon Knight at Disney +. There are many things to see, so take a deep breath and see what’s coming this month.
What’s new in streaming in March
Selected list of movies and TV shows coming this month The bell is very excited about.
Better thingsSeason 5 (March 1, Hulu)
Dan Devine: When we were done High supportI asked mine Bell colleagues writing culture, for recommendations for other, similar heartfelt comedies of recent years. This led us to the amazing and cheerful picture of Pamela Adlon Better things, a deep human depiction of what it’s like to be human in the world, while raising daughters who sometimes just hate you and who sometimes get close to hating you, and then you get over it all so you can make dinner, push them to things and continue to love them unconditionally. Having this kind of cute mirror and comedic pressure relief valve for some of the inherent challenges and the accompanying fury of parenthood was felt … well, let’s call it useful.
Drive my car (March 2, HBO Max)
Sean Fenesi: It is a daring three-hour film that is in turn restrained and distant, to an explosive finale that shifts the emotional turmoil from Hidetoshi Nishijima’s director to his driver and companion, played by Toko Miura. Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s film is beyond intentional – it is a study at a pace and unknowable truths.
West Side Story (March 2, Disney +)
Mani Lazic: Romeo and JulietShakespeare’s critique of the oppressive power of an unequal society has often been simplified in the story of two incredibly wide-eyed lovers, destroyed by fate but with their own West Side Story, Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner return it to its original form. In the process, they reinforce the continuing relevance and relevance of the tale. The film’s desire to be candid about racism, misogyny and economic inequality makes its more sublime moments even more tragic and justified, and the music matches the energy by being more produced, more direct and somehow better adapted. to these sinister topics. Instead of an abstract interpretation of racial violence, Spielberg’s West Side Story uses all the tools of filmmaking to better unite classical history and songs into a single part of cinema, such as a strong fist in which every finger is determined to rebel, as well as others.
Dropping out (March 3, Hulu)
Alison Herman: Elizabeth Holmes is a strange, almost inhuman figure of her own invention. The voice! Green juice! The dances! In their reports, both Rebecca Jarvis and John Kerriru largely adhere to the facts, letting unusual events speak for themselves and avoiding unknowable truths like what Holmes thinks. But like The invention of Anna scientifically the hard way, a TV show doesn’t have that option, or otherwise it’s just a more expensive restoration of what has already been done. Dropping out… it also works as a companion – and corrective – to another sensational scam story. The invention of Anna never presents a cohesive theory about the deceiver Anna Delvi. Dropping outand the performance of Amanda Seyfried, present Holmes as brilliant but impatient and under enormous, self-imposed pressure to succeed.
Time to Win: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty (March 6, HBO Max)
Formula 1: Drive to surviveSeason 4 (March 11, Netflix)
Kevin Clark: Drive to survive is based on the personalities of the pilots and team leaders, the people in charge of the pilot teams, who function as something like a general manager / coach. The show revolves around a Type-A alpha staring directly into the camera as Jim Halpert of The office and they just say what they mean by their boss or colleague. The team’s directors walk around and tell Tom Wolfe’s novels; all the drivers are rich, they look like models and there is still a lot to complain about. These are the pillars of the show: Directors try to outdo each other as masters of the universe, while pilots orient themselves in HR dramas and try to compete as fast as possible. This is the most chaotic mixture possible Hard blows, Gossip girl, James Bondand Game of Thrones. This is perfect television.
WeCrashed (March 18, Apple TV +)
Herman: Nothing has been published about WeWork anymore, “dug into what we saw as the heart of the story,” says Drew Crevell, who created WeCrashed s The office executive producer Lee Eisenberg. “There is no WeWork without Rebecca Neumann, and there is no WeWork without the very specific alchemy of these two personalities coming together.” Both Adam and Rebecca Neumann are portrayed as comedy characters, but Rebecca is the one who carries the emotional weight. Some requests for our sympathy are more effective than others.
AtlantaSeason 3 (March 25, Hulu)
Chris Ryan: Many shows try to keep up with the culture; Atlanta it feels like he’s creating it … While the episodes of the second season were somewhat divided on a narrative level, the cumulative effect was huge. For a show that breaks so many rules, its themes are as old as capitalism. Each melancholy entry into “Robbin ‘Season” was a heavy loss and a hard-fought gain. If you imagine Atlanta as a winter ghost town, it was the season for what happens the day after a dream comes true, but you find yourself in the same old bed, in the same old house, in the same old town, with a bunch of new problems that you feel ominous like your old ones.
BridgertonSeason 2 (March 25, Netflix)
Herman: IN Bridgerton the choice that will most likely fall into the headlines is sex. Herein lies the most direct distinction between the ABC era of Shonda Rhymes and Netflix: What if McSteamy could really become… suffocating? Bridgerton it takes a while to warm up, but once it starts, it’s clearer than a CW-like show Gossip girl he could have dreamed once. Be careful to start as a comfortable watch with your mother, just to avoid eye contact on opposite sides of the couch.
Moon Knight (March 30, Disney +)
Daniel Chin: Stewarded by lead screenwriter Jeremy Slater and a directing team of Egyptian director Mohamed Diab and co-duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead. Moon Knight is expected to be the first MCU project for 2022, when it premieres at Disney + on March 30. After Marvel Studios ended the busy 2021 with the editions of Spider-Man: No way home and the season finale of Hawk’s gaze, two projects that relied on the nostalgic returns of both favorite characters and villains, the studio begins a new year with a new character. IN Moon KnightOur hero’s first trailer doesn’t even know who he is – and he still doesn’t look like much of a hero.
Some new things you may have missed
Since it’s hard to keep up with everything, here are a few things that came up recently at the premiere that might be worth catching up on.
Separation (Apple TV +)
Herman: Created by Dan Erickson and largely directed by Ben Stiller, Separation starring Adam Scott as Mark S., a soft-spoken middle manager at a company called Lumon Industries. Or rather part of it is: In the procedure you give Separation his name, Mark’s primary self, is “detached” from his working self, with one half of his personality retaining no knowledge or memory of the other. Mark’s Ini, Lumon’s infantile term for his 24-hour staff, has no idea what his life is like for the remaining 16 hours a day; Mark’s “mark” has no idea what he’s actually doing in exchange for his salary.
The invention of Anna (Netflix)
Reacher (Amazon Prime)
Jodie Walker: Based on a series of novels by Lee Child, following fictional analyst Jack Reacher, the new Amazon Prime series is extremely focused on investing in the mysterious protagonist. Is Reacher a former military man? You know he is. Does he arrive in a small town in Georgia by bus with nothing but shoes on his feet, clothes on his back, and a mysterious World War II medal in his pocket? He certainly does. Does Reacher have his own moral code, which you or the law may disagree with, but which he follows, regardless of the cost? You bet on your ass.
Jeen-yuhs: Kanye Trilogy (Netflix)
The love is blindSeason 2 (Netflix)
Righteous gems, Season 2 (HBO Max)
Alan Siegel: Righteous gems is a comedy that uses the premise of a superb family of TV evangelicals as a starting point and then spends its first season in a family drama that would make every prestigious series blush – debauchery, extortion, endless battles. With an cast that includes Walton Goggins, Adam Devine and Eddie Patterson’s Theft in addition to John Goodman and Danny McBride, Season 1 paints a picture of a family so busy tidying up their own pockets that they got lost. Now, season 2 plans to go even deeper, exploring Eli Gemstone’s past and how it led him to become a megachurch magnate.
The Boston Celtics are a force to be reckoned with. They have the best points difference and defense rating in the Eastern Conference and can boast the best conference record since the turn of the season on January 8. In the last month, they have beaten the 76ers by 48 points, the Heat by 30, and the Nets by 35 and 23.
The Celtics are also an enigma. Despite all their strengths, they also rank 18th in the offensive rankings, per Cleaning the glass, and the Pistons and Pacers recently gave up. With less than a quarter of the regular season before the game, they are sixth in the East, closer to the playoffs at the top of the standings.
Yet, despite this ambivalent summary, projection systems believe in Boston’s potential. The bellThe NBA odds machine gives the Celtics an 11 percent chance of winning the title, and we’re not alone: the Basketball-Reference sets the odds for the Celtics Championship at 9 percent, ESPN at 13 percent and FiveThirtyEight with an astonishing, league-leading 17 percent.
Boston’s recent momentum and subsequent hopes for predictions are based primarily on the team’s defense. The defense doesn’t actually win more than a playoff attack, but Boston’s defense is out of the norm. During the Celtics series on January 8, their defense was an incredible 4.2 points per 100 possessions better than the next best defense; second place Heat are as close to 14th place as first, per CtG.
The league has come up with value switching as a means of slowing down off-screen offensive kits, and Boston is offering a prime example of this style of defense. The Celtics include 40 percent of rivals, the highest score in the league, according to data from Second Spectrum. (Miami is 39 percent; no other team is over 33.) And they only allow 0.86 points of possession when they change the screen – the most expensive rating in the league.
Boston benefits from incorporating elite individual defenders into this broader team concept. The Seven Celtics have played tough minutes after the exchange deadline and all are at least average in defense, with several ratings among the league’s most influential defenders this season, according to the projected plus-minus.
The defenders of the Celtics from hitting 100 possessions
Player
Defensive EPM
Percentage
Player
Defensive EPM
Percentage
Derrick White
+3.6
99th
Marcus Smart
+2.8
98th
Al Horford
+2.3
97th
Robert Williams III
+1.5
90s
Jason Tatum
+1.2
87th
Jaylan Brown
+0.8
80s
Grant Williams
0.0
62nd
They even cleared their propensity for fouls: before January 8, the Celtics were still the top five teams in defense, but ranked only 18th in the opponent’s free throw percentage. CtG. But the Celtics improved to fourth in the percentage of free throws from the opponent after that moment.
The return of Marcus Smart from injury and the addition of Derrick White, a former Spurs, through trade aid. But the most obvious change that could help explain the Celtics’ current form comes from the deployment of Robert Williams III by rookie Name Udoka, who defends about half the number of screens he had earlier in the season, according to the analysis. of data from the Second Spectrum.
Instead, the Time Lord often plays a free role in safety, nominally guarding an undamaged player from the perimeter while Al Horford or another teammate takes the lead on the screen. So Williams – who ranks third in the league with 2.2 blocks per game – can move to deter any attempt at the edge. Note that before deploying 7 and 6 feet in all the plays in this video, Williams kept a non-shooting wing like Tori Craig or CJ Eleby, not the opponent’s best goal.
Or check out the best example of Boston’s late victory over Denver in mid-February. Instead of facing Nikola Jokic, Williams takes Aaron Gordon, while Jaylan Brown takes over the current MVP. After the switch forces the little white to Jokic, Jason Tatum doubles, opening a ribbon to the hoop – just so Williams can transfer, erase the laying attempt and help seal the Celtics’ victory.
(Aside: the last playoffs didn’t offer much in the way of strong defensive battles; in the last five postseasons only six teams have won less than 90 points. And yet between Boston and Cleveland, Miami and Toronto, this year’s Eastern playoffs The conference can bring defense back to highlights on the schedule, with teams showing stylistic diversity in how exactly they keep teams from scoring, from switching Boston and Miami to Cleveland’s three towers to Toronto’s 6-foot 8-wing fleet.)
But despite all their defensive power, the Celtics’ profile still has some flaws. Boston’s record falls by 5.6 wins less than we would expect based on the difference in points, according to CtG, which is the biggest difference for any playoff team, and the culprit is the problems in the upcoming matches. Boston is only 11-18 in clutch games (defined by NBA.com as games within five points in the last five minutes).
Usually good teams in all games are also good in the clutch and vice versa. The 11 teams with the worst records in clutch situations this season include Boston and the 10 teams with overall loss records.
The worst teams in the clutch
The team
Clutch recording
% coupling gain
Recording without clutch
% gain without clutch
The team
Clutch recording
% coupling gain
Recording without clutch
% gain without clutch
Celtics
11-18
38%
25-9
74%
hornets
13-17
43%
17-15
53%
Hawks
10-14
42%
19-17
53%
Spurs
9-19
32%
15-18
45%
Pacery
9-26
26%
12-15
44%
Knicks
13-19
41%
12-17
41%
pelicans
10-14
42%
15-22
41%
king
10-19
34%
12-21
36%
thunder
14-19
42%
5-22
19%
magic
8-15
35%
6-32
16%
piston
13-17
43%
2-29
6%
But this discrepancy should not be a problem in the future; with rare exceptions, past clutch characteristics are not predictive of future clutch characteristics. The correlation between the regular season victory rate and the post-season clutch victory rate is negative -0.05, among teams with at least five playoff matches from the 2010-11 season – or generally zero, meaning there is no significant correlation. (Looking at all playoff teams in this period, even those with only one playoff game, the correlation is still a small 0.14.)
The Bucks 2020-21 had 13-15 in regular season games, then 7-2 in the playoffs on the way to the title. The 2019-20 Heat were 18-18 in regular season games, then 11-3 in the playoffs. 2011-12 76ers had the worst performance in the regular season among all teams for the playoffs in this period, with a score of 7-20 – then finished 6-2 in the playoffs.
Even if their clutch fights even in the coming weeks and months, the Celtics’ attack remains a real concern. They are still struggling to score in one of the two most lucrative areas of the court: they rank only 26th in terms of edge strikes, CtG, and although they take a healthy amount of 3 points, they don’t actually do that much. For the context of this chart, the average accuracy of 3 points this season is 34.9 percent. This means that only one of the seven most used players of the Celtics is even at the middle level. (Josh Richardson, sent to San Antonio in exchange for whites, was 39.7 percent with 3.5 long attempts to play.)
Rotate the Celtics from a distance
Player
Attempts with 3 points per game
3-point accuracy
Player
Attempts with 3 points per game
3-point accuracy
Grant Williams
3.4
43.7%
Jaylan Brown
7.4
34.8%
Jason Tatum
8.4
32.9%
Marcus Smart
4.8
32.0%
Derrick White
5.3
30.6%
Al Horford
3.9
30.3%
Robert Williams III
0.0
0.0%
White’s figures here include his performances in both San Antonio and Boston. He has shot 25.0 percent in 5.1 game attempts since being traded.
Boston’s shooting problems are compounded by the lack of a central playmaker. The Celtics do not have an offensive engine like most other contenders, which is why Tatum led the team, but ranked only 52nd in the league in points created in 36 minutes when we measured the numbers in January. His assist rate has not changed since last season. In the same way, Tatum leads the team in possession, but ranks only 45th in the league, according to NBA Advanced Stats (minimum 10 games played).
Rather, the Celtics have a number good passers-by – including especially their great ones – but no great creators in a half-court setting. They have to work hard to generate open frames, and when ping-ping-ping sequences do not align exactly, they often end up with lower insulation quality. They rank fourth in the frequency of isolated games, but do not score nearly as effectively as teams such as the Nets (which are first in isolation frequency) and the Bucks (third). Tatum, the team’s only All-Star, is ranked 12th out of 18 players with at least 150 iso this season – not terrible, but not the kind he needs this offense.
More enthusiasm in the transition would help, and Boston has cheered up a small sample since trading for White. Before the deadline, the Celtics added 1.4 transition points per 100 possessions, on CtG, which ranked 27th; after the deadline, they reach seventh place with 4.3 transition points added.
If there is an additional warning sign under the radar for the team, it is that the defense may not be as indomitable as it seems, thanks to a great deal of luck in shooting. Boston’s opponents have not met their expectations of shooting – based on factors such as the location of the shot and the distance of the defender, from the Second Spectrum – with the biggest difference for each team. The difference is especially large during Boston’s sharp rise in the standings: as of January 8, the Celtics’ opponents have an effective flight percentage of 3.3 percentage points worse than expected, while the next team on the list is only 0.8 percentage points below.
Thanks to his scheme and individual talent, Boston’s defense still needs to be one of the best in the league, even if this state of luck does not continue – but given the Celtics’ tendency towards offensive stagnation, it may be necessary to be the best, point, the team to keep its promise. Pistons 2003-04 are a historical anomaly for a reason; not many teams win the title solely because of their dominance in defense.
The projection systems are liked by the Celtics both because of their high differential and because of the talent on their list; FiveThirtyEight, in particular, is in love with the rotation of the Celtics. Of course, with such fierce competition in the East, even computers think they have a much better chance of losing in the first round (37 percent chance, according to our odds machine) than winning the title (11 percent chance). And yet, because the field looks so wide open, Boston can really have one of the best chances in the group.
In the end, the Celtics are able to beat anyone: According to CtGThe Celtics have the best net rating in the league (plus 4.9 points per 100 possessions) against opponents who rank in the top 10 by points difference. For a team that was 18-21 recently, with growing concern about the combination between its two stars, even a 1 to 10 chance in the finals marks a huge leap in the right direction.
Statistics for the entire league until the matches on Sunday.
:format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23279232/Robert_Williams_III_s_Times_Defending_Screen_Setter_Per_Game.png "Why do computers have such a high chance of a Celtics title? 10")