Call it the Celtics’ California Gold Rush of 2023.
Two weeks ago, Boston welcomed some winter weather. The team was coming off a disappointing loss to the Pacers in the In-Season Tournament and staring at a challenging homestand that included a game against the Knicks and then back-to-back two-game series against two top-10 defenses in the Cavaliers and Magic. The Celtics slogged through and swept all five games.
There’s no rest for the weary however. An all-California four-game road trip followed. Head coach Joe Mazzulla didn’t necessarily treat it as a business trip, but rather as an opportunity for more growth.
“We came in with the theme of reinventing our offense as far as our off-ball activity, the ability to execute off-ball vs. switching. I thought we did that,” Mazzulla said after Boston beat LA 126-115 on Christmas Day.
The 3-1 road trip recorded the second (35), third (33), and fourth (31) highest assist totals for Boston all season. And as Mazzulla is fond of noting, it’s not about assists but rather potential assists. Over the four-game stretch in the Pacific standard time zone, the Celtics averaged nearly 50 potential assists per game; in those slobberknocker slugfests against the New York, Cleveland, and Orlando, that number was down to 40.
For much of this last week, much of the focus has been on evolving games of Boston’s two franchise cornerstones, Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum. With the talent now surrounding them, they’ve sacrificed shot attempts for playmaking and playing without the ball in their hands. However, it’s also been a role change their new teammates, particularly Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis.
Instead of being an offensive hub in Washington, KP has become a versatile threat and play finisher. He’s getting his looks in the pick-and-pop and punishing mismatches in the post. Holiday’s evolution might be a little more dramatic. Again, Mazzulla stressed the word “reinvent” in his postgame comments.
“You’re seeing Jrue reinvent his game as far as playing off the ball, playing when the matchup is on him and being involved in different defensive schemes,” Mazzulla said.
In Milwaukee last season, Holiday had a usage rate of 24.4%, acting as the primary ball handler for the Bucks. With the Celtics, that’s dropped to 16.6% and he’s handling less than half of the pick-and-rolls he did in 2022-2023. Instead, he’s getting more catch-and-shoot attempts and hitting 41.7% of those threes.
He’s still leveraging his size and strength though. This starts off with Tatum, White, and Porzingis running a series of screens to generate a mismatch. They get Porzingis in the post against the weakest defender in Austin Reaves with LeBron James lurking in the restricted area.
That’s when Holiday goes to work away from the action. By moving above the break, he’s creating more distance between him and James while simultaneously giving White a better angle for the skip pass. And instead of taking the three, he attacks the close out and draws the and-1 from Reaves.
Conventional wisdom might have had Holiday in the trigger role and Brown and Tatum working away from the ball. But with everybody being able to do everything, they’re adding different layers not just in their individual games, but the team’s playstyle, too.
“[By pushing the pace], I think that’s how we grow as a team,” Holiday said after registering 18 points, 7 rebounds, and 7 assists against the Lakers. “We play so fast and we can get out in the open court and have JB and JT working and we can get DWhite going downhill or get KP popping for a 3, we just have so much firepower that we’re hard to stop.”
