Celtics win streak rolls on: Derrick White goes deep; the Jays solve crunch time
The Celtics had a few overtime losses to Cleveland in the opening weeks of the season that made them look vulnerable. They were really good, but were they going to be great again?
Um, yeah. Nine wins in a row later, with the best record in the NBA at 13-3, the Celtics can’t stop churning their offense and finding ways to win. On Friday, it was a 117-109 win in New Orleans, with the caveat that Zion Williamson was a late scratch. But it hasn’t seemed to matter who’s in and who’s out when the Celtics are playing.
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Marcus Smart sat to rest his inflamed right ankle, so the Jays racked up assists. They couldn’t shoot, so Derrick White took care of it for them. This is a complete offense, and it’s why the Celtics are surviving defensive lapses from the second unit. So let’s dive into what the win revealed about the NBA’s hottest team.
1. Joe Mazzulla and not calling timeouts
There haven’t been many things about the rookie coach to criticize so far, save for his defensive scheme decisions and fluctuating center choices. But his lack of timeouts while leads are slipping has been the focus of the mildest bit of controversy during his early tenure.
It’s early in the season, and the team is trying to ingrain positive habits. The Celtics are winning so much, he might as well give them a little attrition, right?
“I love it. I absolutely love it. I think you have to go through that as a team,” Mazzulla told reporters in New Orleans. “But in order for us to be a great team, we have to handle those situations, we have to build an awareness, and we have to execute.”
Mazzulla likes seeing his players work up a sweat with their backs against the wall. How can they learn to stand tall if they’re sitting on the bench? He said he wants the team to execute its way out of a hole, trusting that the players know exactly what to do and that they just need to actually do it. At this point of the season, when growth may be more prescient than results, it makes sense to Mazzulla.
If he really thought a timeout would save them, he’d call it. But he’s not sold.
“Quite honestly, I’ve watched a lot of timeouts when you call one and then nothing good happens after the timeouts,” Mazzulla said. “It’s like a 50-50 shot the timeout’s going to work.”
The irony: The one time he ran out on the floor to call a timeout was while Al Horford was pulling off a shocking behind-the-back move on the break. White had just rattled off five points to push the lead back to 15 and had blocked a CJ McCollum shot to kick off a fast break.
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Mazzulla wanted to switch something up, so he bailed out of the fast break, got Jayson Tatum back on the floor and swapped Horford for Luke Kornet. The Celtics hit 3s on the next two possessions, pushing the lead to a game-high 19 points. New Orleans pushed back a few more times, but this moment was the difference that prevented the Pelicans’ fourth-quarter run from tying the score.
“There’s definitely a time when you have to call them,” Mazzulla said. “But a timeout doesn’t guarantee anything, except for two minutes of rest, I guess.”
2. Crunch time doesn’t feel like panic mode anymore
Even without those two minutes of rest, the Celtics can manage a decent tempo and go into a wide variety of offensive schemes during closing time.
Tatum’s game management is at the core of it. He is filling different roles on a nightly basis. He started the fourth quarter Friday as the nail man breaking the zone, flashing through the paint and making quick reads with overhead passes. Then, as New Orleans started switching later in the quarter, he and Jaylen Brown targeted Jose Alvarado to bully him down to the block and make the defense decide whether to collapse.
One of the best plays of Tatum’s 10-assist night came when the Pelicans finally cut the lead to six with about six minutes left. He backed down the typically avoided Herb Jones — who at least can be moved a bit when you put a shoulder into him — and got inside leverage to drive the rim. But with Brandon Ingram sitting by the rim to sag off Grant Williams in the weak corner, Tatum didn’t go for the contested layup.
He did his usual gather to go for his floater, just long enough to get Ingram to commit to him. That was enough for Williams to have some daylight to get the shot off, nailing the corner 3. That was the closest the Pelicans ever got in the fourth.
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When the lead was down to seven with 1:15 left and Ingram was covering Tatum, Mazzulla brought Brown and Williams up for a stagger screen. Brown’s screen switched McCollum onto Tatum, but then Williams rolled before his screen to draw Jones away from getting to switch onto Tatum.
That gave Tatum the space to back down McCollum from the midpost, where he needed one move to get the angle he wanted. Using his forearm instead of his hand to push through McCollum’s hip on the drop step into the lane — making it borderline legal — he could drive the lane and get to his floater. McCollum didn’t make it easy and fought hard, but Tatum can score through that. Even though it wasn’t an ideal shot, in the end, the mismatch slowed the pace down to where Boston wanted it and gave the Celtics just enough of an advantage to close this out.
Sometimes they win beautifully. Sometimes it’s ugly. Either way, they’re getting the job done.
3. Derrick White: Knockdown shooter?
White is now hitting 45.2 percent from deep on the season on 3.9 attempts per game, though that number was at 40.7 percent before he went 6-for-8 from deep Friday. He’s not quite in the echelon of the league’s most feared shooters like Sam Hauser and Payton Pritchard when he’s in Atlanta, but White has been sustainably solid as a shooter this season. He generally goes 1-for-2 or 2-for-4, but he’s going to have a few outlier evenings, and they’ve been spectacular.
The most apparent improvement in his shot is how quickly he dips the ball and gets up a higher release. His shot arc has a nice rainbow to it, and the ball looks like it’s going up more than out of his fingers.
He’s always been able to remain effective when left open because he is so quick to attack closeouts and make a smart pass when he gets into the paint. But he’s also shooting the ball well under tighter contests, still able to stay in his rhythm because he just shoots it faster now by default.
Derrick White, have a night 🔥 pic.twitter.com/dMSufjsVHT
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) November 19, 2022
Tatum and Brown closed this game out, but White was the one who got the Celtics there. Every single night, Boston is getting a few guys outside of its top scorers to shoot it well or find a rhythm attacking. White’s shot is enabling him to be that guy more often than ever since he joined the Celtics.
(Photo of Derrick White looking to pass against the Pelicans’ CJ McCollum: Stephen Lew / USA Today)
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