Boston Celtics
Tatum and Robinson are going to be a migraine for opposing defenses.
The Celtics improved to 3-0 in their preseason slate on Wednesday, pulling away from the Hornets for a comfortable 114-93 victory.
Here are the takeaways.
Jayson Tatum looks poised for something special
After Saturday’s win over the Cavaliers, we pointed out that Jayson Tatum looked healthy again after something of a rocky return to action last year, and we won’t belabor the point too much here.
Still, after another stat-stuffing performance in which he led the Celtics in points and rebounds with 19 and eight respectively to go with six assists, we should once again say that if you were fretting about whether Tatum would ever look like himself again after his Achilles injury, fret no longer: Tatum looks fully recovered and entirely whole.
At his best, Tatum is entirely in control of the game, and he looked in complete command against the Hornets — drawing double teams, finding teammates when extra help came, and abusing mismatches whenever they presented themselves. He leaked out and got a couple of easy baskets — a crucial way to establish rhythm — and once again he shot a respectable-but-not-outlier number from 3-point range, going 3-for-8 from deep.
When Tatum returned last year, he (understandably!) didn’t look entirely certain as to how well his body would hold up to the violent toll the NBA game extracts from a player’s joints and limbs.
Now, however, he looks like he trusts himself again, whether he’s exploding past Hornets forward Liam McNeeley who inexplicably decided to cover him near half-court, or confidently running a pick-and-roll with Derrick White to create and easily dispatch a mismatch against Dennis Schröder.
Speaking of pick-and-rolls …
The Tatum/Mitchell Robinson pick-and-roll will feast
Tatum has a new pick-and-roll partner, and video coordinators across the Eastern Conference better get busy clipping the partnership, because it’s a doozy: Tatum and Mitchell Robinson are going to be a migraine for opposing defenses.
On the one side, you have a 6-foot-10 forward who you have no choice but to contain when he rumbles around a screen. Tatum operating around a pick is a DEFCON-1 situation, especially when he’s near half-court and can get a head of steam rolling to the rim.
The best thing you can do, one would then think, is to have the big man take a step to his side and engage Tatum, forcing him to think twice about driving.
The problem is Robinson is one of the league’s best pick-and-roll options as a rolling big man, and if you step over to help against Tatum, you open yourself up to easy lobs like this.
But okay, you figured out how to time your defense to stop a Tatum/Robinson pick-and-roll, or perhaps you had your corner defender drop into the paint to contain Robinson as a lob man. Congratulations! The Celtics now have an open corner 3-point shooter (Paul George missed three in the first half alone, all of which were wide open).
“Once you get a guy behind and basically it’s 4-on-5 at that point, a lot of things can happen,” Robinson told reporters after the game.
Alternatively, the Celtics could lull you to sleep running actions away from both Tatum and Robinson, then run an off-ball pick-and-roll which leads to another lob and slam.
The Celtics used to pair Tatum with Luke Kornet in the pick-and-roll to great effect. Robinson might be able to do more. He’s less durable, so the Celtics should be careful with him this season to keep him ready for the playoffs, but the Tatum/Robinson two-man game has long, sturdy legs underneath it.
Robinson feels appreciated in Boston
According to Robinson, the Celtics are using him a lot more than the Knicks, and he enjoys the extra work, even if — as he put it — it comes with the added cost of Joe Mazzulla “getting on my ass a lot.”
“Which, I need that,” Robinson added, as an aside.
Robinson, however, noted that with the Celtics, he is now in the action a lot on the offensive end, which wasn’t always the case last year.
“[With the Knicks], I was just like, set one screen then roll, then they’ll be going on the other side and maybe come back,” he said. “But this, I’m in like every action. I’m setting a flare, pin-down, ball-screen, whatever, I’m just absolutely moving.”
Robinson added that he feels appreciated for doing the dirty work.
“Now I’m like, the more dirty work I get, the more chance I get on the offensive side,” he said. “Kind of go hand-in-hand and continue to do that.”
The Celtics defense looks like a problem
Out of all the myriad things about which we could say “it’s just preseason, but …,” the Celtics’ defense might be the most notable — both because it has been a destructive force, and because one simply can’t draw any conclusions whatsoever about a team’s defense based on preseason.
Still, it’s hard not to notice that the Celtics — who averaged just 7.1 steals per game last year during the regular season, 28th in the league — recorded 16 steals in each of their last two games.
The Celtics’ opponents will, of course, be far more locked in when the regular season rolls around, but you could excuse fans for raising an eyebrow at a defense that looks like a nightmare to try to solve through three exhibition games.
Neemias Queta has big plans for himself
For the second consecutive game, Neemias Queta attempted a 3-pointer.
In fact, we would go as far as to say Queta attempted four 3-pointers on Wednesday, although one of the attempts was actually a two-pointer because his enormous size 18 shoe stepped on the line in the corner, and unfortunately for Queta, that was the one that went in.
Still, Queta was attempting to attempt a 3-pointer, and in the preseason at least, we’ll say that counts for something.
Mazzulla was noncommittal about whether the trend will continue.
“I think as we open that up a little bit, it’s an ongoing conversation about the timing of when it’s a good shot, when it’s not, what that looks like,” Mazzulla said, adding that it will depend on lineups and matchups.
“But at the end of the day, he’s a guy that continues to get better and better, and it’s a space that we’ll look to see how we can take advantage of it.”
That, of course, isn’t exactly a green light, although Queta noted that he has been making them in the offseason.
“They trust me to shoot them,” Queta said. “Just got to make them.”
What Mazzulla did fully endorse, however, was an impressive three-dribble drive, which Queta finished by punching home a one-handed slam.
“That playmaking is an area that we’d like to see Neemi take to a little bit of a different level for sure,” Mazzulla said.
The Celtics didn’t warn the bigs about the double-big lineup
According to Mazzulla, the bigs had no idea that they might play together on Wednesday, which Robinson confirmed.
“It caught us off guard,” Robinson said. “Overall, it was a little shaky at first, but after we got going and kind of learning spots and stuff like that, I think it kind of went smoothly.”
The Celtics have far more coherent lineups than their double-big look, but as a change-of-pace way to mix things up and overpower opponents with size, they could give Queta and Robinson a shot during the regular season, especially if Queta can make a few 3-pointers.
Jordan Walsh got his second straight start
Make of this what you will, but Jordan Walsh was the fifth member of the Celtics’ starting five for the second game in a row.
Walsh isn’t as prolific offensively as Baylor Scheierman or as spacey as Sam Hauser (or Payton Pritchard), but he does bring a chaotic defensive element to the starting group.
For his part, Mazzulla claimed not to have considered the starters (“just kind of said we’ll just do what we did last time,” the notoriously chill and laid-back Celtics head coach told reporters), but he lauded Walsh’s contributions.
“Jordan continues to be really good at the start of games guarding the team’s best player, getting off to a good start defensively, something he’s done well for us those last couple games,” Mazzulla said.
“It’s a huge role for him that we’re going to need from him.”
What’s next
The Celtics will close their preseason slate against the Sixers on Friday, which is another opportunity for Jaylen Brown to make his first appearance against his old team.
Then, after a long weekend, the Celtics will finally make their official regular season debut — the first contest of the NBA season when they take on the Pistons at the bizarre tipoff time of 3 p.m. EST.
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