Boston has the recipe
Can they cook up a deep playoff run?
Good morning. Let’s basketball.
The Cottagers, Joshua Reynolds, 1788
The Celtics were in a bit of a no-win situation heading into Tuesday’s game against the Sixers. Philadelphia won’t have James Harden for another week, yet is done Seth Curry and Andre Drummond. So if you beat them, it’s not a true reflection of where you stand against the assumed eventual Sixers you may meet in the playoffs. Lose to a shorthanded Sixers team — albeit one that has been excellent all season — and you really don’t stack up to the version with Harden.
And yet, Boston found a way to achieve victory in a no-win situation: they embarrassed the Sixers in Philadelphia. Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum were on fire off rip, and the Boston defense did what the Boston defense does.
Do you know how good the Celtics defense has been lately? Boston is at No. 2 in team defense right now, shades behind the Warriors. The Celtics will almost certainly overtake Golden State sometime soon. Since Christmas, Boston has the No. 1 defense by an enormous margin (3.5 points per 100 possessions). This shouldn’t be a huge surprise: Ime Udoka has cited defense as his priority for the team’s focus and the roster has tons of defensive talent, including the two stars. You look at this roster and you see a good defense. The team is just finally healthy and organized.
The defense is performing better than anyone could have reasonably expected of any team. But if you were to pick five teams with top-tier defenses before the season, you’d probably have included Boston among them. The only weakness is defensive rebounding, but that’s more than made up by Boston’s tops-in-league shooting defense and low defensive foul rate. That’s a killer combination.
The offense is where trouble lies: it’s only average, even during this blazing hot eight weeks or so. The C’s don’t get to the line and are middle-of-the-pack in shooting; the team has two highly talented individual scorers but doesn’t get many easy points as it were. They take an above-average rate of threes but are bottom-10 in converting them. There’s a glaring lack of a deadeye outside shooter on the roster; Brown’s at 35% on the year, Tatum’s at 33%, Marcus Smart and Al Horford are around 31%. Derrick White probably isn’t going to make a huge impact there (career 34% outside shooter).
But Tatum is a genius solitaire scorer, as the Sixers witnessed Tuesday. Brown is incredible, too. We’ve seen teams contend for championships with elite defenses and middling offenses that feature genius individual offensive players. That’s a real recipe NBA champions have had. The Lakers in 2020 had that recipe. L.A. had a top-tier defense and a middling offense. They won the title.
Now Jayson Tatum is not LeBron James on offense and Jaylen Brown is not Anthony Davis and this isn’t the bubble, where shooting improved without travel or fans. But you get the picture: you get a seat at the table with a defense this good, even if your offense isn’t spectacular. And for what it’s worth, the Celtics offense is gaining some steam. There’s a possibility that if the C’s nice stretch continues, Boston could have a top-10 offense and defense by the end of the season.
And on the back of this 9-game winning streak (and counting), Boston has stormed into the messy Eastern Conference seeding picture. The Celtics are just a game behind Philadelphia for No. 5, 1.5 games behind Cleveland for No. 4, 2 games behind Milwaukee for No. 3 and 3.5 games behind Chicago and Miami for No. 1. And the Celtics have beaten each of those teams in front of them at least once this season.
The Nets are considered a top contender in the East still, and with good reason. Boston has opened up a 3-game lead over Brooklyn for the No. 6 seed, and Toronto is in between them. Nothing about Boston’s play over the past eight weeks has suggested the Celtics will be the playoff team to slide down to make room for Brooklyn (or Toronto, for that matter).
Conversations about who is coming out of the East will rightfully focus on the two most consistent teams in Miami and Chicago, the two teams that just traded All-NBA players in Philadelphia and Brooklyn and the reigning champs in Milwaukee. Cleveland is there too and frankly it’s rude to leave them out. But it’s pretty clear that Boston belongs in the conversation, too. It’s hard to beat a team you can’t score on, and no one is having much success scoring on the Celtics right now.
Joel Embiid Tries to Learn the Harden Stepback, A Play In Three Acts
Act I: Training Montage
Act II: Challenge From an Adversary
Act III: Answering the Call
Back to the lab.
Scores
Cavaliers 116, Hawks 124 — Really really curious how the Hawks perform in the play-in and playoffs (should they make it). The ceiling is so freaking high.
Mavericks 107, Heat 99 — Great win for Dallas. Also:
Also also: Davis Bertans had his best game in six weeks in his Mavericks debut.
Celtics 135, Sixers 87 — Hey man, Joel Embiid had the dunk of the night though.
Pacers 119, Bucks 128 — Best basketball player on the planet. 50 points, 21 FGAs.
Hornets 120, Timberwolves 126 (OT) — Your regular reminder that Karl-Anthony Towns is one of the most talented scoring bigs we’ve seen in years. He had a sick block in overtime as well.
Anthony Edwards left early with an injury, but made time to give KAT hell for not getting the ball in the final seconds so he could hit a free throw and get to 40 points after an intentional foul.
Grizzlies 121, Pelicans 109 — Uh the Grizzlies are only 1.5 games behind Golden State for the No. 2 seed. Tyus Jones had 27-9 starting in place of Ja Morant. This team is ridiculous.
Schedule
Busy 11-game slate with an ESPN doubleheader. All times Eastern.
Hawks at Magic, 7
Pistons at Celtics, 7:30
Wizards at Pacers, 7:30
Nets at Knicks, 7:30, ESPN
Kings at Bulls, 8
Blazers at Grizzlies, 8
Raptors at Timberwolves, 8**
Spurs at Thunder, 8
Rockets at Suns, 9
Nuggets at Warriors, 10**
Jazz at Lakers, 10, ESPN*
Links
I’m trying not to overread into James Harden’s post-trade comments, but it’s fairly clear that Kyrie Irving’s decision to not take the COVID-19 vaccine led to Harden’s decision to ask for a trade.
Chris Haynes had a long interview with Donovan Mitchell in which Mitch disspells a lot of the rumors about beef with Rudy Gobert and potential wanderlust. The read I get is that Donovan Mitchell is extremely chill, which means Utah is extremely lucky.
Marc Spears on the Jazz’s awesome scholarship program.
The Warriors talk about their struggling defense.
Joe Johnson will be leading USA Basketball’s senior men’s team into World Cup qualifiers.
Be excellent to each other.
I'm just waiting for this Boston thing to fade away. I'll give them two more weeks of stellar play.