much though the Boston Celtics have some excellent off-ball players, Jayson Tatum’s injury made that skill set much more evident in Game 5.
NEW YORK — The Boston Celtics need to come up with innovative offensive strategies because Jayson Tatum is on the sidelines (or in a hotel room in New York City). With a career-high 12 assists in Game 5, Jaylen Brown led the way as Boston won handily. However, that was not the beginning or finish of the Celtics’ offensive strategy.
Despite Luke Kornet’s seven blocks and the combined twelve threes from Derrick White and Payton Pritchard, there was a flurry of off-ball screens from even the most improbable players. Leading the effort were Pritchard, White, and Jrue Holiday, who figured out how to open them or others.
The Celtics have been screening with their guards to look for mismatches all season, and Boston increased their off-ball screening when they rested players in the final stretch of the regular season.
Derrick White and Payton Pritchard are excellent screeners.
The two most blatant instances of Pritchard and White taking advantage of Brown’s gravity to earn open threes in Game 5 occurred shortly after one another.
Initially, the Celtics received At the top of the key, Mitchell Robinson shifted to Brown. Holiday then broke Pritchard loose with an off-ball screen to set one for Brown. Pritchard earned an open three by pump-faking Miles McBride into the air, racing to the three-point line, then running a ghost screen instead of setting it.
White performed a similar action shortly after. Before White went up to the three-point line to set his own screen, Al Horford screened for Brown once more, allowing Robinson to get on him.
In order to get an open shot, White set the screen, waited for McBride to move onto Brown, and then sprinted out to the three-point line before Robinson could grab him.
“I believe a lot of it is instinctive.” Sam Hauser spoke on his and Pritchard’s off-ball efforts. We practise playing off the ball a lot every day. You have to be able to be productive without the ball because, given our roles, we won’t get it as much as other guys. We therefore naturally do things like that, and the other night we demonstrated it.
In order to help Luke Kornet get routes to the basket, Pritchard further set up several back screens for him. Every time, he was able to either earn a bucket for himself in the paint or set up his teammate.
The Celtics will need to become more inventive with their offence now that Tatum is out for the foreseeable future, and off-ball movement is a great way to do that.
• The reality check that Celtics supporters needed was provided by Jaylen Brown’s speech.
Despite his illness, Kristaps Porzingis’ legacy with the Celtics endures.
The Celtics’ season ended poorly, but it also showed why they’re not finished.
Mazzulla recently gave a sobering assessment of the Celtics’ season-ending defeat by the Knicks.
xz
