BOSTON — A Luke Kornet spot start next to Kristaps Porzingis. The first extended Jaden Springer rotation minutes. Plenty of double-big. The Celtics’ win over the Pistons, their sixth straight, featured all that and more as late-season rest and experimentation took over for the second consecutive night and ended in the same result. A dominant Boston win.
“I think just seeing how different lineups work well with each other,” Jayson Tatum said in Washington. “Obviously, tonight we didn’t have three guys. Whatever the case may be throughout the course of the regular season … try some different lineups, different rotations and see what we can maybe do in the playoffs.”
Boston beat Detroit, 105-81, without Jayson Tatum, Jrue Holiday or Al Horford, while Sam Hauser sat with the ankle sprain he suffered on Sunday. Derrick White posted 22 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists to score the first career triple-double. Porzingis, limited in his return, scored 20 points in 21 minutes on 7-for-14 shooting, converting 5-of-9 from three in what marked a rare start at the four to get the team’s bigs more minutes together. Kornet and Porzingis finished the night +20.8 per 100 possessions over 11 minutes while Kornet and Xavier Tillman Sr. joined forces again and posted a +60 in five.
While those combinations, not to mention Svi Mykhailiuk, Oshae Brissett and Springer, who all logged significant time on Tuesday, stand little chance to play significant roles in the playoffs, getting players who typically don’t play together some repetitions will allow for maximum playoff flexibility. Tillman continues to search for his role offensively and lineups where his defense can shine, which happened at the highest level yet since his arrival from Memphis. Hauser’s absence also posed a legitimate question ahead of the playoffs. How tight do the Celtics want to play? Especially if they lose one, never mind two rotation players to an injury later.
That’s not to ask whether Boston could survive a blow to Jaylen Brown, who scored 31 points in the win, or Tatum. The team probably couldn’t sustain either and shouldn’t be expected to. A game without Porzingis over four postseason rounds appears more likely than not. The big man will play 59 games at most this season, considering two more back-to-backs where he has rested, and while many of those nights amounted to load management or precaution, hamstring, calf and ankle ailments led to three stretches where he missed multiple games. Horford, Kornet, Brissett, Tillman and Neemias Queta early this season allowed Boston to improve to 18-3 in those situations before his return Tuesday. The Celtics used the luxury of their 10.0 game lead in the standings and depth to give Porzingis extra recovery time.
“It felt great,” Porzingis said. “Because I had the minutes restriction, it’s different spurts of playing. I barely played in the first. In the second, I had a longer stretch. Something unusual, but other than that, always good to be out there. Joe talked to me toward the end of the second quarter, let’s sit you this one so you can play in the second half more in case the game was closer … after the Denver game, I was sore a little sore the next day after the game. I didn’t even mention it to anybody, just some tightness or whatever, then the day of the Phoenix game, I started warming up in the morning and I started to feel something … if it was life or death, or playoffs, I would’ve been completely fine.”
Less Porzingis in the first half meant more Tillman, who finished +19 off the bench, his best mark as a Celtics, while switching onto guards and rotating inside to protect the rim. Another night at the four saw him try another three and miss, but combining his minutes with Kornet’s led to more pressure on the offensive glass. Kornet finished with six of his 10 offensive rebounds on the offense end, continuing a month where he’s averaged 7.7 points and 4.7 rebounds per game while relieving Porzingis and Horford. He also blocked three more shots.
Boston went smaller into the second quarter, seeing Springer score his first rotation points as a Celtic at the free throw line and Pritchard hit a pair of threes to expand Boston’s lead from three to 11. The Celtics started 9-for-18 from deep while shooting below 40% from two, missing opportunities like a pair of Brissett offensive rebounds. Brown’s steadiness in transition held the Pistons at arm’s length, 13 points at halftime, despite spurts from Jaden Ivey and Jalen Duren. Cade Cunningham and Ausar Thompson, among others, sat out.
Porzingis, who rode the bike late in the second instead of playing, took the first shot in the second half and made it from post positioning. He hit a three on the next try, blocked Ivey and delivered two more long shots between quarters that put the game out of reach. While Kornet relieved him midway through the fourth, another blowout and Porzingis’ success now commonplace, the Celtics star enjoyed the newfound minutes alongside his fellow seven-footer.
“It’s an adjustment,” Porzingis said. “It wasn’t the regular five I was out there with today, but we make it work. We read each other. We play off each other. A lot of the stuff is open and we play off each other, knowing each other’s strengths and weaknesses, but I’m not gonna lie, me and Luke together, we were running to the same spots all the time, doing the same thing, so the spacing was not perfect today early in the game, but we’ll figure it out.”
