BOSTON — Jaylen Brown’s nod of affirmation spoke for him.
Next to Brown, Kristaps Porziņģis was explaining why the Boston Celtics ran their late-game offense through him and Jrue Holiday during a mid-November win against the Toronto Raptors. The ball would often find either Brown or Jayson Tatum in such a situation, but the Celtics purposefully went away from the two All-NBA wings down the stretch. Why?
With the Raptors switching everything, Boston wanted to set up Porziņģis to pick on Dennis Schröder. Since Schröder was guarding Holiday, the Celtics used Holiday to initiate pick-and-rolls. They had the answer to punish Toronto’s strategy. It succeeded, producing two straight crunchtime buckets in a game the Celtics squeaked out by three points.
Even while not featured prominently at the end of that game, Brown liked the purpose behind his team’s attack. These days, he believes the Celtics are usually the smarter team, not just the more talented one. Yes, they have more options than most teams, but they also are typically calculated about which ones to employ at any given time. Brown credits Boston’s coaching staff with doing an excellent job of teaching the players how to see the game.
During a conversation with The Athletic earlier this week, Brown shared his appreciation for his team’s heightened sense of detail. In his eyes, the Celtics have done a better job of diagnosing coverages, hunting the right matchups and making the proper reads. After a 37-11 start, the Celtics rank second in offensive efficiency, the same place they occupied at the end of last season. Their production hasn’t changed much relative to the rest of the league, but their process on that end of the court has evolved. The changes have produced what Brown considers an “advanced” approach.
“It’s how basketball is supposed to be played,” Brown said. “A more intentional version.”
Head coach Joe Mazzulla says he wants to have the Celtics play with more structure. (David Butler II / USA Today)
More talent, more structure. By design, Boston’s offense isn’t as free-flowing as it used to be. In hopes of maximizing a roster loaded with scoring options, Joe Mazzulla has decided the team needs to be “a little bit more calculated” in what it does.
“Because we have so much talent it can be easy to just say, ‘Hey, go,’” Mazzulla said. “And then you’re not getting the best of everybody.”
The Celtics have weapons across the court, but want to be precise in how they utilize them. Al Horford said Mazzulla has harped on offensive organization “from the beginning of the (season).”
Tatum added that the enhanced focus in that area has encouraged the players to “see everything that’s going on” before deciding what to do on a given play.
Mazzulla said he gave the players “a little less freedom this year just because of how many guys we have that have the ability to score.
“Maybe less freedom’s not the right word,” he added. “I think it’s just more structure. I think it’s just putting guys in more of a strength spot, so putting them in more two-man and three-man actions together and having them understand how they impact each other on the action.”
Brown said the coaching staff has made things “a little bit more detailed for us.” Horford said the Celtics are playing with “more purpose.”
“I think definitely there was less structure last year,” Horford told The Athletic. “And I just think, given the situation we were in starting the season, Joe as a new head coach, not enough time to put in everything we needed to, things like that, some of those things take time. You could argue that you could implement it last year but the reality is that it just didn’t work out like that. This year I think we’re all understanding and really trying to buy into what Joe’s telling us.”
The additions of Porziņģis and Holiday have given the Celtics more styles to play, but they want to be deliberate about choosing the right path to follow at any given time. What action should they run? Which defenders should they target? What is the best way to solve a specific coverage?
“Attention to detail,” Brown said. “It’s the smallest details. If a big is up or if a big is back. If they’re switching or if they’re staying, maintaining. Just reading the different coverages on the fly and making the right read versus the right coverage.”
The Celtics haven’t always succeeded. After a November loss to Minnesota, during which the offense went missing, Mazzulla said he should have put Rudy Gobert into the action instead of spacing him out. While falling to the Nuggets in January, the Celtics scored two points over the final four minutes and 50 seconds.
Denver used wings to defend Porziņģis for much of crunchtime. Mazzulla said later the team could have posted up the 7-foot-3 center more often that night. When the Rockets tried a similar strategy in Boston’s next game, the Celtics responded by dumping the ball to Porziņģis in the post and allowing him to steer the offense.
The lowest moments, of course, bring back memories of Boston’s recent playoff failures. Even the Celtics’ sparkling performance during “clutch” minutes — they are 15-8 in games with any clutch time, with the fourth-best offense and seventh-best defense in such situations — can’t quell the concerns they won’t be ready for the biggest postseason moments.
Despite any lingering fears their old issues will pop up again at the worst time, Brown believes his team is preparing better now for that stage. He pointed out how many lineups and strategies the Celtics have tried on both ends of the court. He highlighted the zone defense they have busted out on occasion, a new trick. He said they have played through many players, including Sam Hauser and Payton Pritchard, “because we’ll need everybody when it’s time to go.”
It could be tough for players to sacrifice shot attempts and touches, as many key Celtics have, but Brown said they have “no ego at all.”
“Winning is most important: The ego of winning,” Brown said. “So I think that we’re more so focused on that. We all know that we need each other. Especially during the course of a long year, different games, different matchups, it’s all in preparation for playoff time. All of this is like building towards trying to be ready for when it’s game time.
“Maybe last year, we won a lot of these games that were big games or whatever, but I don’t know how much that prepared us for later in the season. I think we’re thinking later in the season and we’re keeping that in mind. It might have cost us a game or two early but we’re definitely thinking about how we can grow and develop certain areas of our team and continue to improve. So when the lights are the brightest, we feel comfortable.”
Mazzulla has kept the end goal in mind. He has experimented during games in hopes of adding layers to his team. By his estimation, he spends 80 percent of the time doing whatever it takes to win that night and 20 percent of it trying to work on different ways to win.
“I think there’s never one way to win a game,” Mazzulla said, “so I think kind of coming in with an open mind about how a game’s going to have to be won. Obviously, the non-negotiables are there: your effort, defense, execution and that stuff. But just being open-minded to (the idea) you never know how a game’s going to go. You can win it in a different way.”
The Celtics are building more ways to win. Now in his eighth NBA season, Brown believes he understands the game better than ever. That’s part of the reason he claimed he was playing the best basketball of his life early this season, even before his efficiency numbers started to climb back to their usual levels. He has sacrificed some of his scoring, like many of the Celtics’ rotation players, but said that’s not important to him.
“I definitely have grown a lot as a basketball player,” Brown said. “I definitely have grown a lot as a playmaker. I still have a lot of growing left to do. It’s exciting. People think that in basketball you kind of reach your peak, and I think for some that’s true. But me and guys like JT, we’re always searching how to get better.”
Like Brown, Tatum believes in the increased offensive structure. He said it’s about the entire team “understanding who’s on the floor, what we’re trying to accomplish, who are we trying to attack.” He said it has led to the Celtics “playing with purpose, not just going out there and not thinking.”
As loaded as their roster is, the Celtics know that alone won’t be enough. Brown said this group of players came together at the right time to prioritize winning and winning alone.
“We all have had experiences that have all led us to this place where we’re ready to get over the hump,” Brown said. “Maybe early in our career we were more interested or just as interested in doing other things, but now is a great place in all of our lives.”
(Top photo: Alex Bierens de Haan / Getty Images)
