There were plenty of big plays in the Thunder’s comeback victory over Boston Sunday afternoon, but two, in particular, stand out.
First, Kenrich Williams poked the ball away from Jaylen Brown. Cason Wallace picked it up and then beasted Jrue Holiday in transition for a layup that gave the Thunder a two-point lead:
Then, just minutes later, Lu Dort stole a surprised Derrick White’s cookies like a tardy Grinch and strolled down the court for an easy dunk:
The crowd drowned out the broadcast, and even though the game was still tight, there was a palpable momentum shift. The Thunder knew they had it.
The turnover game was a funny thing yesterday. Under Joe Mazzulla, Boston never forces turnovers. Since the 2022-23 season, the Celtics have ranked 26th, 27th, and 24th in forced turnover rate. It hasn’t hurt their overall defensive rating (third, third, and seventh this season), but Mazzulla wants his guys positionally disciplined to force opponents into bad shots. The Celtics never allow corner threes and had notched four straight seasons as a top-three team in opposing rim frequency until falling to 11th this year.
What if he gave the Celtics a little more leash to gamble and chase turnovers?
I hear you. The Celtics technically forced 15 turnovers yesterday to OKC’s 16, but that stat is misleading. Turnovers can be broken down into live-ball and dead-ball categories. Live-ball TOs are generally steals that keep the ball in play, while those of the dead-ball variety result in a clock stoppage.
While both are useful, live-ball turnovers are substantially more so. An older study from Inpredictable suggested that live-ball turnovers create 1.2 points per possession, while dead-ball turnovers only result in 0.9 points per possession (worse than the expected offense after a made shot or defensive rebound).
The reason is undoubtedly obvious. Live-ball turnovers start fast breaks, while dead-ball turnovers give defenses a chance to set themselves. Forcing turnovers is always a good thing, but generating live-ball turnovers is one of the biggest swings in basketball.
Boston only generated six live-ball turnovers in the marquee matchup, while the Thunder notched 11 steals. Relatedly, the Thunder scored 22 points in transition, including a whopping 13 in the fourth quarter! The Celtics only had 11 for the game.
Mazzulla’s dogmatic insistence on discipline has yielded results, but we shouldn’t assume that a Celtics team filled with intelligent defenders will necessarily compromise their integrity when chasing havoc. Most of the best defenses in the league have heavily forced turnovers.
This year alone, five of the top six defenses also rank in the top eight for forcing turnovers (and OKC and Orlando, the best and second-best defenses, are also first and second in that category). Last year, five of the top six defenses were in the top 10. And the year before that, eight of the top 10 defenses were in the top 10 for forced turnovers, with only Boston and Milwaukee excepting.
This is a theme; teams that force a ton of turnovers are usually really good defenses. Boston itself used to be one of those teams; under Ime Udoka and Brad Stevens, the Cs routinely ranked as an elite defense with above-average turnover-forcing marks.
Seventh is no slouch, but anyone watching the games can tell Boston isn’t quite as airtight at the point of attack or with their help schemes. I’m not saying Celtics players should chase the ball around like a bunch of golden retrievers. But Derrick White, Jrue Holiday, and the Jays are long-armed and intelligent players. Teams have slowly figured out ways to attack Boston’s defense (can the Celtics save Charles Lee from hell Charlotte?).
Why can’t they press the passing lanes a little more, particularly when Porzingis is healthy and provides strong backline rim protection? Why can’t they take some tactical digs at the ballhandler, punching at the ball like an NFL safety? Why can’t they incorporate more semi-spontaneous double teams to panic ballhandlers?
Boston is locked in a battle for seeding in the East. This isn’t last season, where they ran away with the league and had a margin for error that took up the entire paper. They don’t want to experiment for experimentation’s sake. But with more than half the season left, Mazzulla has plenty of time to relax the rules and see what happens.
That process has already started. Since Christmas Day, the Celtics have actually ranked 14th in forcing turnovers while maintaining a seventh-rated defense. Of course, some of that is schedule-based, but Mazzulla has already admitted to an intentionality.
When asked why the team had committed so many fouls against the Indiana Pacers recently, Mazzulla responded that they were “trying to force more turnovers, trying to be more active…there’s a couple of things we gotta work on, and forcing turnovers is one of them. That’s gonna lead to a little bit of moments of unsolidness, which hopefully creates turnovers, but tonight it didn’t.”
It’s good the coaching staff recognizes this, and I hope the team’s recent struggles in the win/loss column don’t cause Mazzulla to revert to old habits. I can’t help thinking that Boston’s defense has a higher ceiling if they could embrace a little more chaos. The personnel is there. Holiday is getting older, but it’s not a coincidence he’s posted the two lowest steal rates of his career since moving to Boston. Jaylen Brown has had moments of superb on-ball pressure this season; I’d like to see more, even if his superb foul rate falls to just pretty good. Derrick White is often positioned as the low-man helper to take advantage of his extraordinary rim-protection instincts, but I’d bet he could play passing lane bandit, too, if given the opportunity.
The Celtics’ defense is far from broken. That doesn’t mean it can’t be improved, however. With plenty of games left, I’d like to see the Celtics take a page from both the Thunder and my four-year-old by becoming a little stickier-fingered.
