DALLAS — The onset wasn’t instant for the Boston Celtics on Tuesday night. It was a slow burn. One that reached its full potential in the third quarter, largely thanks to a barrage of Luka Garza threes.
Cooper Flagg and the Dallas Mavericks pushed back in the fourth, but it wasn’t enough. Jaylen Brown and Payton Pritchard had done enough damage.
Boston picked up a 110-100 win in Dallas, but what happened along the way?
1. Payton Pritchard off the bench
Perhaps the most notable news to come out of Tuesday night was Pritchard’s move to the bench. The Boston guard had started all 48 games he had played in heading into Dallas. He had only missed one game all season.
Yet in the wake of the Anfernee Simons trade earlier in the day, Joe Mazzulla decided to make a change.
“I just thought it gave us the best chance to win,” Mazzulla said. “Payton’s a competitor who wants to win, wants to do what’s best for the team, and I thought that gave us the best chance to win.”
Why, though? What about the Simons deal made bringing Pritchard off the bench the smart decision?
“Real simple, [we] both kind of know it benefits our team more,” Pritchard said. “Puts another ball-handler off the bench. At the end of the day, it’s about, do you play starter minutes? Do you finish games? I don’t really care about starting. If you want me to start, I’ll start. If you want me to come off the bench, it doesn’t matter.
“So, it’s just about, when you get in, what do you do with your minutes? [That’s] what I was focused on today.”
Pritchard wasn’t upset. He obviously wasn’t thrilled, but there didn’t seem to be much animosity in his voice as he spoke to reporters in the locker room post-game.
At the end of the day, Pritchard wants to win basketball games. And now that Simons is no longer with the Celtics, his role as a bench ball-handler may become a staple of Boston’s lineup.
“I mean, as you see how our team is constructed, you need somebody to come off the bench to handle the rock,” Pritchard said. “And it’s good. D-White comes out, then I come in. There’s always somebody that can bring it up, get us into the flow, stuff like that. So, it just makes the most sense for our team.”
2. Payton Pritchard’s isolation scoring
From the jump, Pritchard and Brown were on fire.
Everything about the way they scored was calculated. That’s the way they move. Each and every dribble has a purpose.
For most of the game, it looked like Pritchard was attacking small guards and immobile bigs. The Ryan Nembhards and Moussa Cisses of the world. But sometimes, observations aren’t reality.
“Honestly, I wasn’t really targeting one person in particular,” Pritchard said. “For me, it’s looking at help-side. Obviously, a pick-and-roll can play. I missed some easy threes, some shots I probably should have hit, but as far as getting to the mid-range, just finding angles, seeing what their body position is, and then after that, it doesn’t really matter to me who it is. Get to my spot and rise up.”
Pritchard’s right. Kind of.
On the first play of the game, Pritchard didn’t attack Cisse off the dribble. He didn’t try to body Nembhard. He went at Flagg.
That’s Flagg, the 6-foot-9, defensive menace, likely Rookie of the Year.
Pritchard’s first bucket of the game comes out in sort of a Zoom action.
Normally, that’s when a player receives a screen to come up from the corner (a down screen) and then immediately runs into a dribble-hand-off (DHO). But rather than coming from the corner here, Pritchard starts from the wing.
Pritchard gets a screen from Brown and rolls into a DHO with Garza, who immediately slips the screen, because Flagg is already so behind the play.
Brown’s initial screen put Flagg so far out of position, that Garza knew all he had to do was roll, thus taking Cisse out of Pritchard’s way. From there, it’s all about reading angles, as Pritchard alluded to.
He knows where Flagg is coming from. He also knows where Cisse is. So, instead of trying to force his way into the paint, Pritchard spins, giving himself a new angle to attack. Garza sets a Gortat screen on Cisse, and Pritchard scores in the paint.
Then, as the game went on, Pritchard opened up his bag even more.
Later in the first quarter, Pritchard ran another Zoom action, this time, with Jordan Walsh as the initial screener (and Garza still running the DHO).
This time, Cisse stepped up, and since Garza rolled into the middle of the floor, Pritchard didn’t have room to adjust his drive. But Pritchard didn’t panic. He stayed composed and, most importantly, kept his dribble alive.
Once he got deep into the paint, Pritchard pump-faked, got both Caleb Martin (his primary defender) and Cisse to jump, then laid the ball in for an easy bucket.
Pritchard’s ability to keep his dribble alive, especially below the free throw line, is one of his greatest offensive strengths.
“Especially below the free-throw line, they both do a good job of keeping their dribble,” Mazzulla said of Pritchard and Brown. “Which, one, allows, puts the helps in defense. Do they want to come over and help? If they come over and help, you get kick-outs. We got some great kick-outs for Derrick [White] and those guys tonight. If they don’t come over and help, you’re able to get to your spot. Helps them draw fouls.
“So, just the pace with which they dribble, especially below the free-throw line, gives them versatility, but it helps our team.”
3. Jaylen Brown’s patience
As Mazzulla mentioned, Brown’s patience is just as impressive as Pritchard’s, even though it doesn’t always look the exact same on the court.
The third quarter, in particular, perfectly highlighted Brown at his best: A patient, stone-cold bucket, unafraid to attack any situation on the hardwood.
Here, the Celtics set up in Spain pick-and-roll. This is when the ball-handler (Brown) and another player (Neemias Queta) run a PnR, and a third player (Sam Hauser) sets a back screen for the first screener (Queta).
But Dwight Powell sniffs it out, wraps around Hauser’s screen, and gets back into his drop coverage.
So, Queta rescreened. Powell stepped up just enough to take away Brown’s mid-range shot, which gave Martin enough time to fight his way back into the play. But Martin dove into the paint to take away Queta’s roll, and like Pritchard, Brown kept his dribble alive.
Powell stepped up to guard Brown, but with his dribble still available to him, all it took was one hesitation to get past the Mavs big man.
These types of scoring possessions keep the Celtics’ offense flowing. They don’t have as much talent as last season. They don’t have as many offensive options. But they have two of the best isolation scorers in the NBA.
Sometimes, that’s enough.
There’s a new superstar in the NBA, and he’s from New England.
Tuesday night marked the first time Flagg got to go up against the team he grew up watching the most. And based on the way the Celtics chose to guard, it’s clear they already view him as one of the league’s premier players.
“He’s just a good player,” Mazzulla said. “He does a great job of using his physicality, getting to his spots. Takes advantage of high pick-up points, and takes the space on a low pick-up point. So, you have to, obviously, make it difficult for him. I mean, he played really well. He had 36, shot 50% from the field. But he makes it tough on you.
“And so, I thought, he tests your discipline. I thought we made it difficult for him. I thought he made some great looks, though.”
Boston threw extra pressure toward Flagg for most of the night. And it was instantaneous. There was no feeling-out process. Mazzulla did not hesitate to treat the rookie like a veteran.
White spent the entire night constantly eyeing Flagg whenever he got the ball. He waited for the perfect opportunity to pounce, and when it arose, he helped off his matchup.
White wasn’t the only Celtic who played help defense, but he was certainly Boston’s primary choice to do so.
Tuesday night wasn’t perfect for the Celtics. In fact, Dallas actually won the fourth quarter. Flagg exploded for 15 points and got himself to the free-throw line six times.
The Celtics committed eight of their 20 personal fouls in the final frame. Did the Mavs adjust? Did the Celtics send too much pressure?
“I think we just fouled them,” Mazzulla said.
Led by Flagg, the Mavericks do a great job of getting to the free-throw line. Constant drives and aggressive takes have lifted them to 10th in the NBA in free throw attempts per game (25.0).
“I mean, they put a ton of pressure on you, getting to the line. There was obviously some ones that you can’t, because their ability to just put pressure on the rim, you’re gonna have some of those. And then I think there were just some that you was just some that we have to be better at.”
6. Top-of-the-key Luka Garza
Garza thrives as a screener. He’s great at creating space for Pritchard, Brown, White, or whoever is handling the ball.
But rolling to the rim isn’t always his best option, because he’s turned himself into the league’s most consistent threat from the top of the key.
“I think, as a big, that’s generally where you get most shots,” Garza said. “Just off the pick-and-pop, it’s always on the above-the-break kind of area, and so, I try to work on that a lot. Over time, I’ve grown more and more confident in it, and my teammates trust me. If I get it, and I kind of get a good rhythm stepping into the ball, I feel like I’m going to knock it down.”
Among 57 NBA centers who have attempted at least 10 threes this season, Garza has the best three-point percentage at 47.6% (on 63 attempts). And teams are still leaving him wide open.
He shot 4-of-4 from deep range on Tuesday night, including three triples from the top of the key.
The rest of the league simply hasn’t caught up to the reality of Garza’s three-point dominance.
