Name it the Celtics’ California Gold Rush of 2023.
Two weeks in the past, Boston welcomed some winter climate. The staff was coming off a disappointing loss to the Pacers within the In-Season Match and looking at a difficult homestand that included a recreation in opposition to the Knicks after which back-to-back two-game sequence in opposition to two top-10 defenses within the Cavaliers and Magic. The Celtics slogged by and swept all 5 video games.
There’s no relaxation for the weary nevertheless. An all-California four-game highway journey adopted. Head coach Joe Mazzulla didn’t essentially deal with it as a enterprise journey, however somewhat as a chance for extra progress.
“We got here in with the theme of reinventing our offense so far as our off-ball exercise, the power to execute off-ball vs. switching. I assumed we did that,” Mazzulla stated after Boston beat LA 126-115 on Christmas Day.
The three-1 highway journey recorded the second (35), third (33), and fourth (31) highest help totals for Boston all season. And as Mazzulla is keen on noting, it’s not about assists however somewhat potential assists. Over the four-game stretch within the Pacific commonplace time zone, the Celtics averaged almost 50 potential assists per recreation; in these slobberknocker slugfests in opposition to the New York, Cleveland, and Orlando, that quantity was all the way down to 40.
For a lot of this final week, a lot of the main target has been on evolving video games of Boston’s two franchise cornerstones, Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum. With the expertise now surrounding them, they’ve sacrificed shot makes an attempt for playmaking and enjoying with out the ball of their palms. Nonetheless, it’s additionally been a job change their new teammates, notably Jrue Vacation and Kristaps Porzingis.
As a substitute of being an offensive hub in Washington, KP has change into a flexible menace and play finisher. He’s getting his seems within the pick-and-pop and punishing mismatches within the submit. Vacation’s evolution may be a little bit extra dramatic. Once more, Mazzulla confused the phrase “reinvent” in his postgame feedback.
“You’re seeing Jrue reinvent his recreation so far as enjoying off the ball, enjoying when the matchup is on him and being concerned in numerous defensive schemes,” Mazzulla stated.
In Milwaukee final season, Vacation had a utilization charge of 24.4%, appearing as the first ball handler for the Bucks. With the Celtics, that’s dropped to 16.6% and he’s dealing with lower than half of the pick-and-rolls he did in 2022-2023. As a substitute, he’s getting extra catch-and-shoot makes an attempt and hitting 41.7% of these threes.
He’s nonetheless leveraging his dimension and energy although. This begins off with Tatum, White, and Porzingis operating a sequence of screens to generate a mismatch. They get Porzingis within the submit in opposition to the weakest defender in Austin Reaves with LeBron James lurking within the restricted space.
That’s when Vacation goes to work away from the motion. By transferring above the break, he’s creating extra distance between him and James whereas concurrently giving White a greater angle for the skip go. And as an alternative of taking the three, he assaults the shut out and attracts the and-1 from Reaves.
Standard knowledge may need had Vacation within the set off function and Brown and Tatum working away from the ball. However with all people with the ability to do the whole lot, they’re including totally different layers not simply of their particular person video games, however the staff’s playstyle, too.
“[By pushing the pace], I believe that’s how we develop as a staff,” Vacation stated after registering 18 factors, 7 rebounds, and seven assists in opposition to the Lakers. “We play so quick and we are able to get out within the open courtroom and have JB and JT working and we are able to get DWhite going downhill or get KP popping for a 3, we simply have a lot firepower that we’re laborious to cease.”
