Rasheed Wallace has stepped up his game in December. After averaging single-digits for the first quarter of the season, Sheed has pushed that up to 10.8 over the first 4 games of December.
Just watching the games, you can see it looks like Sheed is passing up some of the 3's he was taking earlier in the season. He's moving the ball a little better. He's getting into the post a little more. And digging through the numbers, you can see Sheed is actually becoming less 3-happy.
Here's how his 3 points shots break down:
- October: 28 overall attempts. 20 3pt. attempts: 71.4%
- November: 128 attempts. 73 3pt. attempts: 59.3%
- December: 31 attempts. 14 3pt. attempts: 45.1%
We were all crying about how many 3's Sheed was taking earlier in the year... but that has died down. Sheed has mixed up his game a little more to include a lot more shots from 15 feet and in. And just to give Doc Rivers some credit here... he said he wasn't worried and that Sheed would work it out. He talked to Sheed about the number of 3's he was taking. It looks like Doc was right.
As much as we want Sheed to be a "stretch the defense" guy... he NEEDS to be where he is right now. I'm OK with about a 60-40 split between Sheed's 2 and 3 point attempts. The Celtics are on a big winning streak for many reasons... and Sheed's production off the bench is one of the reasons. And his production off the bench is up because the volume of his 3 point shots is going down.
By the way... Hey NBA.com... you think, maybe, you can change Sheed's profile picture to his current team? It's been a while. Thanks.
Photo by Larry W. Smith/NBAE via Getty Images
