Much has been said about the talent on this Celtics team, particularly with their top-6 players. With sixteen All-Star selections between them, the versatility of the roster has been at the forefront of their success.
Those riches don’t only hit the salary cap. For so many other stacked contenders, the stacking of the totem pole has been an issue in the locker room. So far, Boston has avoided those pitfalls.
When asked what worked in their 116-102 blowout of the Knicks on Saturday night (and maybe indirectly, what has worked throughout their league-leading 45-12 campaign so far), Tatum replied, “just our unselfishness. Playing with the right purpose every time we go down the court, finding the right matchups that we’re trying to attack, and getting good-to-great shots,” Tatum told ESPN’s Lisa Salters.
Head coach Joe Mazzulla has stressed that the Celtics can’t necessarily out-talent or even out-work opposing teams. More importantly, he wants them to out-smart them, too.
“We’ve got so many good players on our team. We always talk about respecting each other’s space. Any given time, we could have two to three advantages,” Tatum said. “There’s no really wrong answer. It’s just about respecting each other’s space and understanding that it’s a rhythm game. It’ll come back to you eventually.”
Tatum finished the game with a cool 19 points, six rebounds, and six assists — well below the 28-9-7 he’s averaged over their longest winning streak (8) of the year. However, Mazzulla called it a “beautiful display of basketball” that would most likely get “underlooked” in the MVP conversation. With Tatum often drawing multiple defenders, he was more aggressive scanning the floor for his teammates.
After an efficient 21 points on Thursday against the Bulls, it was Jaylen Brown leading the team in scoring with 30, relentlessly attacking mismatches against big man Precious Achiuwa with his speed and shooting and overpowering smaller guards Josh Hart and Donte Divincenzo with his strength and size.
“We’re a more organized team this year. We’re thinking the game. We’re trying to be the smartest team every night. We take our time. We identify mismatches and we play the game the right way. I think this is one of the best years that we’ve done that since I’ve been a Celtic,” Brown said.
The narrative around the Knicks is that they a “try hard” team. They’re third in the league in offensive rebounds and first in second chance points. Those are admirable characteristics for a team clawing to host a first round series in April, but for these Celtics, they have broader goals. They’re historically the greatest offense in NBA history in part because they’re second in the league in generating open shots and for those that are defended, they’re crushing with bigs over smalls or smalls around bigs.
When Al Horford came into the game, the recently acquired Bojan Bogdanovich picked him up on defense to start the fourth quarter. Mazzulla immediately recognized the mismatch for the 37-year-old who is rarely used as a primary scoring option or playmaker out of the post.
“He felt we could attack through that way. I usually run to the corner, so I decided to post up and take advantage of that and attack that matchup,” Horford said after finishing the game 5-of-7 with four offensive rebounds.
The Celtics now return to TD Garden for a week and a three-game homestand against the 76ers, Mavericks, and Warriors, playoff teams that will provide different challenges in terms of who to attack and how to defend their best players.
