BOSTON — The Bulls double-teamed Jayson Tatum on nearly every possession on Wednesday. That left Kristaps Porziņģis popping, trailing or otherwise open to shoot three after three. On a night where he finished 8-for-14, wrapping up a month where he’s shooting over 50% from three, it looked like the formula that should always drive Boston’s offense.
Just have Porziņģis take and make everything.
“Honestly, today I didn’t feel perfect,” he said after scoring a season high 34 points. “Before the game, my energy was not crazy, but sometimes you have good games like that … tonight was a game where I was gonna get the shots. It was a matter of whether I was gonna make them or not, and they were going in.”
Instead, it’s been a make-or-miss season for the Celtics — even for Porziņģis when he first returned. Despite a shot profile that Joe Mazzulla approves, the Celtics have witnessed their worst results this month with a 9-6 record. Jayson Tatum, shooting 42.4% this month, and Jaylen Brown (42.5% FG) swapped rotation spots hoping for better results.
Following a season where targeting mismatches and urgent selflessness made a new-look team instantly flow, 2024-25 has at times looked like what you would’ve expected last year: a struggle to figure out where and when shots will come from with such a talented roster.
Porziņģis’ return exacerbated that challenge. It’s easy to forget he wasn’t a significant part of the playoff picture last off-season or the opening month of this regular season after surgery.
“It’s not so much about playing with (Porziņģis),” Mazzulla said. “It’s how people are defending him, how people treat him, so the adjustment is how people impact him, because he has the ability to play inside and out. So it’s not so much that we gotta get used to playing with him, and that’s for everybody. We gotta get used to playing with guys depending on how they’re defending and attacking us.”
Houston went even further to take Tatum out of Monday’s loss, throwing crowds around him that held him scoreless in a half for the first time since 2021-22. Mazzulla responded by playing Tatum the entire second half, which helped him score 15 points in the third quarter. As Mazzulla noted previously, it’s not about getting one player going. Their matchup-based attack allows the team to naturally focus on getting the ball to the best spot and leaves the coaches without the responsibility of dictating shot totals.
That can often leave one of the stars out of the action, especially when the offense slows. Boston ranks 29th in pace this month and it shows. That leaves less possessions and a smaller pie to share. When all their starters take the floor together, they can devolve into setting up the matchup then watching one player go to work. The Celtics rank third in offense this month and third in season-long isolation efficiency, but it’s worth wondering what impact the nightly disparity in opportunity has on the energy level for those not involved.
“When the ball’s moving, I think everybody’s getting shots, everybody’s getting good looks. And that’s when we’re at our best,” Sam Hauser said earlier this month. “Because everyone can contribute in different ways to this team. When the ball’s moving, everyone able to showcase what they bring to the table.”
For all the talk about rotations, shot totals and the dynamic between Brown and Tatum, they could both benefit from more activity between each other when they both share the floor.
Their average passes between each other per game floated back above even this month, matching last year’s mark, but prior to the west coast trip, that dipped to 7.4 through the first nine January games. During that stretch, they fell to last in team passes made each night, rising to 28th since.
In eight games since the Celtics switched their rotations, Brown averaged 6.6 points in the first quarter while shooting 56.4%. Tatum’s down to 4.6 on 36.4% FG after averaging 8.3 points on 43.3% shooting in those situations with a full stint. A lack of stoppage left him out of the game for nearly the entire second quarter on Wednesday.
It’s a tough balance for Mazzulla as stats increasingly show this season that more Tatum usage equates to more wins. The equal opportunity formula worked last season. They won a championship with Tatum managing extra pressure from defenses throughout the playoffs. So it’s understandable why they don’t want to deviate due to a month of poorer shooting.
Having Porziņģis positioned between Brown and Tatum’s minutes as an easy target should help. But it doesn’t totally solve the ball movement and shot distribution problems we’ve watched the team have at times.
It’s a new year, and while individual players should be able to persevere through slower workload nights to allow for winning, that hasn’t totally been the case this season.
“To me, it’s more about finding two-on-ones,” Mazzulla said. “When they’re in the blitz, I think our spacing got a little distorted (on Monday) because we were cutting at the wrong time. One time, we hit a seam pass and Luke missed Neemy. So it’s really just reading the two-on-one. It’s actually easier to see the two-on-one on the blitz. You have to just maintain your spacing and make the right pass versus that and execute … whether it’s a shot or dribble drive … it’s easier to come against that than versus switching … with the guys that we have, they’re doing it.”
