During Boston’s six-games-in-nine-nights stretch to open December plus the last two during this NBA Cup hiatus, the Celtics have seemingly righted the ship. Last week, CelticsBlog’s Jacob Issenberg compared the team’s progress to last year’s championship run at the 25-game mark. Considering the missed games of their top-6 and a higher level of execution in the clutch, Jake concluded that despite their identical records, this year’s squad has been better with all signs pointing to an even more dominating 82-game run.
Congrats to the Milwaukee Bucks on their in-season tournament crown, but here come the Celtics.
Before this mini-break, Boston was coming off a seven-game win streak followed by a 5-2 stretch of their best basketball. The days off will help the nagging injuries that several of the starters have been dealing with, but it’s an untimely speed bump for this moving train.
“Obviously, you get healthy, you get your rest in, but also, you get to practice. You get to work on the things you want to get better at in the short term and then balance the things you want to get better at in the long term,” Joe Mazzulla said after Tuesday’s practice. “It’s also dangerous. Sometimes, too much time off can hurt you a little bit. You make sure you take advantage of it but also make sure you’re ready to play.”
On Sunday, Kristaps Porzingis banged up his right heel (exhale, it wasn’t his surgically repaired left foot) and didn’t return in the second half. Mazzulla called him day-to-day with a home-and-away against the Bulls to wrap up the week.
Thankfully, Porzingis didn’t think it was a big deal after the game, but he might be downplaying just how much he’s meant to the team’s recent turnaround. His return coincides with a stingier approach in the restricted area. Before KP came back, the team allowed 26.8 field goal attempts in the restricted area at a 67.4% success rate; with him on the floor as a rim protector, those looks have dropped to 25 a game at 62.5%.
That seemingly small statistical difference has butterfly-affected a consistent improvement in the overall defense. The Celtics rang in the new regular season with a 111.5 defensive rating in October, improved to 110.8 in November, and are suffocating opponents at 106.2 points per 100 possessions in December.
And while the offense hasn’t exactly enjoyed the same steady upward trend, there are signs that there’s another level. Despite their increase in three-point attempts (42.5 to 51.1), the Celtics are a shade under their historic pace from last year. However, their assist % is up — hinting to a more pass-friendly, democratic approach — and after a losing a few games earlier in the season to offensive rebounds, they’ve cleaned up the boards, too.
“It’s balance. You want to be well-balanced, effective on both ends of the floor. A big key to that is being open-minded and having an understanding that you have to change. You may go up against a team that’s better than you at two things and you have to find a way to combat that,” Mazzulla said.
Up next for the Celtics is a mini-series with the Bulls. They’ve adopted Boston’s three-point attack and in an NBA Cup matchup last month, both teams combined to shoot over a hundred triples in a 138-129 Celtics win. That ended up being a shootout with Payton Pritchard going full Wyatt Earp at the OK Corall. Will Mazzulla again decide to go shot-for-shot with Chicago or will he try to beat them another way?
“Every team is different. You don’t look at it as ‘the league,’” Mazzulla said. “Every game, you have to have the balance knowing that we’re a great team, but you have to know that every team is better than you in something and you have to understanding what that team’s strength is compared to yours and how do you combat that and take it away.”
The Celtics have another 25+ games before All-Star Weekend provides another break in the schedule. If the current trends continue, another dominant run could push Boston to the top of the Eastern Conference again and overwhelming favorites in the Finals.
