How Knicks and Celtics Have Stayed Unpredictable on Defense in Playoffs

NEW YORK — The Celtics have faced more defensive resistance than expected through three games against the Knicks, a modest defense during the regular season that’s pulled out more switching, timelier double teams and collapses from the corner to confuse Boston.

Tonight, they have another opportunity at home to put the Celtics on the brink of elimination.

“These are things that you’re working on all year long,” Tom Thibodeau said. “You go into a season and you’ve already determined who your switching partners are. Ok, so these are the guys who you’re automatically going to switch with in dribble handoffs and pick-and-rolls. Then you add to it as the season goes along. Then there are some guys that you’re gonna blitz with, some guys you’re gonna go under on. So there are gonna be different things and I think you have to be adept at all those things.”

Hedges from the Knicks’ wings frustrated Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown through the first two games before Tatum more straight-up defense from OG Anunoby in Game 2. Mikal Bridges’ role, covering the ball-handler all year, has shifted to switching onto Kristaps Porziņģis and more perimeter assignments. Even Karl-Anthony Towns has expanded beyond his typical drop defense role as Mitchell Robinson joins him in double-big looks. This play below encapsulate everything the Knicks have done to disrupt Boston.

The overarching strategy through two wins relied on the Celtics’ players missing threes, which happened in droves. Boston missed 75-0f-100 to begin he series, and that drought ended into a Game 3 where the Celtics ran, used Jrue Holiday in the pocket and created more rhythm opportunities to shoot.

They’ve only shot 39.4% from the field, 32.1% from three and have lost the free throw attempt battle, 76-58, as offensive issues from the Magic series persisted into round two. Fittingly, the Knicks pulled from Orlando with their help from the corner. Something the Celtics started identifying to free Tatum early in Game 2.

They haven’t come close to replicating the Magic’s ability to take the three away though — losing the volume battle 140-93. That’s the difference between this series and last, where the Magic switched everything and never helped. The Knicks aggressively help and play a traditional drop on most of their possessions.

“We got great stuff out of (Tatum) screening (in Game 2),” Mazzulla said. “They didn’t want to leave his body and D.White was able to get downhill and make some reads. We were able to get out of that. I think his versatility is whether he’s a pick-and-roll ball handler, whether he’s a pick-and-roll screener that’s been able to change some of the play call frequency that we have, and so we just gotta find ways to take advantage of that. They changed their coverages a little bit from Game 1 to Game 2. We just need to keep making those reads.”

That’s what makes the Knicks’ chances in this series precarious even as their 2-1 lead remains over the Celtics entering Game 4 on Monday night. New York has little path to victory when it shoots 25 threes and allows 20 makes to Boston like it did on Monday. The Celtics’ insistence on continuing to shoot threes paid dividends on Saturday. Because when they’ve forced the issue inside the paint, running into Knicks collapses and zone looks, they’ve turned the ball over and missed 47-of-65 twos outside the restricted zone.

Brown and Tatum are 5-for-22 on mid-rangers, Tatum is 1-of-9 in the paint outside the restricted zone and they’ve only combined to try five corner threes. Holiday did a better job finding threes around the wings and Derrick White knocked down 4-of-8 in the corner, but Boston has attempted the fewest corner threes of any team in the playoffs and only converted 34%.

Switches take away their threes, pinches hurt their driving ability and different strategies to take away the rim have flattened the Celtics’ offense with Porziņģis and others unable to punish switches.

“Just be more aggressive,” Thibodeau said at Knicks practice on Sunday. “We weren’t locked-in in terms of the switches and some of the coverages that we were doing and we were just giving them easy shots. When you give a team like that confidence to start the game, it’s really hard to shut their water off. So we’ve gotta be more aggressive defensively, more into the ball, more up to the level of the screen and playing our coverage and then force them into contested shots.”

The Celtics have been able to lean on their defense to get them through their offensive struggles. The way they’ve switched has showed their defense is again one of the most dangerous factors in the series.

They change matchups and coverages too, taking away the Knicks’ pick-and-roll with Tatum, trying some zone in Game 3 and utilizing help away from Josh Hart to limit New York’s drives. They haven’t totally eliminated Knicks offensive rebounds despite stacking up their own, but have limited Jalen Brunson outside of crunch time while knocking New York down to 33.3% from three after the last game.

Holiday held Brunson to 5-for-18 shooting through the first five games while Al Horford’s point switching has limited him to 6-for-18 and 3-for-10 from threes, effectively eliminating the Knicks’ Brunson-Towns combination alongside Tatum’s switching, Brunson 2-for-5 against him.

“Try not to foul him,” Holiday said on Monday morning. “Knowing that he lives at the free-throw line and does a great job of drawing fouls, try to keep him off the free-throw line as much as possible … I think seeing multiple bodies and trying to corral him … seeing two or three guys … (then) hopefully we can turn the ball over and get out in transition.”

Towns hasn’t totally punished Celtics smalls, shooting 5-for-10 against Tatum and 4-for-11 with Brown on him. Most importantly, they haven’t let him shoot threes. Towns answered by unloading on Horford in Game 2, but he’s only 5-for-16 in the series against him.

The Celtics’ ability to change defenses and matchup is their own strength they’ve built throughout the year, and double-big looks only open further opportunities. Boston, believing it is better as a team this year because of that lineup flexibility, can grind through a postseason where it isn’t at its best when it’s defending at the level it has. Only the Thunder have a better defensive rating this postseason.

“Teams have to do that. The Knicks are doing it, we do it,” Horford said. “You look around the league, everybody has to do it, but for us, one of the strengths of our team, I believe, is our ability to do many different things on the defensive end and to be able to switch up coverages in the middle of the game, and try different things. Our personnel gives us that advantage. Having a Jrue Holiday and a Derrick White, it’s a luxury we have with all the switching they can do. They can guard bigger guys when they need to, and obviously, JB and JT, what they do. I think just overall, and really whoever steps in, even any of our guys from the bench, they know what it is and we just figure things out.”