Joe Mazzulla boiled the Celtics’ transition woes through three games down to two factors — bricked layups and a Wizards layup line in garbage time against Washington. Both landed Boston in last place defending fast breaks, allowing 1.31 points per transition possession, to that point.
“When you shoot 16-for-42 from two, it’s tough to work on your transition defense,” Mazzulla said on Monday. “So we gotta stop missing layups, stop turning it over, we had 14 turnovers (against the Pistons) … it’s directly correlated to the offensive result that happened prior to the transition to the defense.”
That dynamic stayed true through a sample size of five games following the Celtics’ first loss, 135-132, at Indiana that nearly flipped into a win thanks to a second half comeback over 15 minutes behind by 24 points.
Boston fell from 12 to 14th in transition defense when removing garbage time, allowing 1.22 points per transition possession. That’s not as poor as their collective productivity would’ve suggested previously, but still marked a drop-off from their top-ranked defensive unit against the break last year that only allowed 1.16 points per 100. In the loss to the Pacers, it capsized, giving up 1.25 points per 100 and 29 total fast break points.
Missed layups further contributed to the meltdown as the Celtics shot 10-of-24 in the paint in the first half. That improved to a 50% rate in the second half before a 1-of-3 overtime doomed them. The Celtics have relied on offensive rebounding to counteract the number of misses they’ll generate while relying on the three — taking 57 more on Wednesday — and to slow down the opposing team’s transition attack through the pressure they’re putting on the offensive glass.
Dropping rebounds while in position to grab them contributed to the leak-outs before Neemias Queta’s entry into the game that was heading for a blowout turned the it around with a new dynamic on the glass. Queta secured four offensive boards in 13 minutes. Luke Kornet finished with seven and shot 1-of-5 It felt like he could’ve had 10.
“Our transition defense is poor when we brick layups, when we turn the ball over and when we don’t crash, because there are two guys stuck in the corner,” Mazzulla said. “We’re crashing more per shot than we were last year. So when we crash, our transition defense is higher, we gotta stop turning it over, we gotta stop missing layups and then we have to stop not crashing, so just working on those things.”
Even through a successful start to the season highlighted by hot shooting, Boston has faced lineup questions heightened by Sam Hauser’s absence and limited availability following his return from back pain on Thursday. New center combinations without Kristaps Porzingis and new talents in Queta and Jordan Walsh emerging have made rotation choices difficult night-to-night. The Celtics’ starters have won their minutes by 17.6 points per 100 possessions, while their two most common second unit combinations in Hauser’s absence (Holiday-Pritchard-Tatum-Tillman-Kornet, -25.2 and White-Pritchard-Brown-Tatum-Kornet, -14.6) lost their minutes.
Porzingis’ return, expected in December, provides hope for a complete rotation playing comparable to last year. With Hauser back alongside Kornet and Pritchard, they’re closer, those three pairing with White and Tatum as a productive bench trio (+57.6) while Horford and Tillman Sr. have played well into their second year together, posting a +22.6 net rating playing with Pritchard, White and Brown.
Mazzulla initially leaned into double-big combinations when Hauser went down, then turned to Walsh more often against Milwaukee after those looks played slowly and couldn’t control the boards in the near collapse at Detroit. Walsh split time with Tillman Sr. at Indiana, Tillman missing all three shot attempts as his offense creates an early season predicament for Mazzulla. Tillman talked earlier this week about the challenge of playing with another big, finding themselves both helping on some plays. Queta and Horford haven’t overlapped much. Tillman and Kornet have been among the team’s worst rotations.
As it stands, the Celtics can either play Kornet or Queta with Tillman Sr. or Horford if they want to have only one non-shooter on the floor. Tillman’s 30% start from three places him closer to non-shooting status, but Horford’s minutes would increase if they phased Tillman out. That’s undesirable in October. Tillman and Queta are +53.4 per 100 in 11 minutes, something worth looking at when Horford inevitably misses Saturday’s back-to-back. Walsh hasn’t flashed enough shooting to play in Tillman’s role yet. Baylor Scheierman doesn’t seem close.
There’s a case for Queta to play more than Kornet in some games, but Mazzulla hesitated to expand his role following a strong showing against Washington with his defense remaining a question. He’s a better rebounder than Kornet, who in turn brings more screening, passing, defensive and even finishing reliability. Though Queta can only improve in those areas by playing.
Boston could also go smaller, something Oshae Brissett allowed them to do last year, and now would require pairing Pritchard with Derrick White and Jrue Holiday, who logged 24 minutes on Wednesday in favor of Pritchard joining the larger lineups. With the Celtics leaning into threes more than they did even one year ago, they need tom maintain their offensive rebounding to defeat their opponent’s transition game.
The best bet, for now, is either staggering Horford’s minutes with both Kornet and Queta separately, or expanding Walsh’s role. It was noticeable that, in game that seemingly begged for the Celtics to play smaller, they couldn’t get there between Hauser’s limitations and Holiday’s reduced minutes.
“I think our offense is still adapting,” Mazzulla said. “We’re playing probably more double-big these first three games than we did a lot of times last year. Thats’ the personnel that we have, but I think they’re doing a good job. Our defensive system is a little bit tricky when it comes to the double-bigs. We’ve handled that well, and we just gotta continue to work on our execution with those lineups, but the pace we’re playing with is fine as long as we continue to work toward our defense. That’s the most important thing.”
