Jaylen Brown and Celtics Offense Overwhelm Suns with New Approach

The Suns dominated the boards, activated Devin Booker, Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal, giving them comparable top-end talent to the Celtics with Kristaps Porzingis out after Booker also missed last week’s game. Those three stars searched for their mid-rangers, made 19-of-37 (51.4%) shots inside the arc, seeking out the pocket against Boston’s dropped bigs. Four Suns starters scored 20 points or more and the other grabbed 20 rebounds. Phoenix led by eight late in the first, then the Celtics flipped the game with a 22-6 run between the first and second quarters. They never looked back.

“Even if they were to make 10 less threes, they still would’ve been in the game just because they got a lot of them up … we only got up (31) threes to their 50 … their center made (six) threes, that’s tough,” Kevin Durant said. “In the first half, J.T. got it going. In the second, J.B. got it going. Three or four guys with 20 points, 25 threes as a team.”

Boston shot ahead (25-50 3PT) by as many as 20 points before the end of the third and the benches emptied with three minutes left in the fourth. Another blowout, this one as impressive as any given the math and against one of the league’s most talented starting units. Beal and Booker scored on three straight possessions to spark a 6-2 run, keeping hope alive trailing by 16 late, but Jaylen Brown swiped the ball from Grayson Allen and burst in transition to throw down a dunk and reach 37 points. On the opposite end, Joe Mazzulla ran onto the court as Phoenix called time, reaching out and almost blocking Royce O’Neale’s three after the whistle as time ran out on the Celtics’ 127-112 win. An exclamation point Boston’s stars grinned at. Joe being Joe, they deemed it.

The continuation of trends from the west coast trip, primarily Brown becoming the focal point of the offense while layers of ball movement involve players further down the lineup more consistently, allowed Boston to out-pace the Suns’ offense. Jayson Tatum added 26 points and five assists, combining for eight with Brown, while Al Horford, Derrick White and Jrue Holiday posted 46 points and 18 assists. Holiday reached 10 assists in fewer than three quarters, facilitating a variety of locations and hitting threes around screens from the wing.

“Finding ways to affect the game. He’s much more decisive in early transition. He has his reads, he knows what he’s looking for,” Mazzulla said. “They changed matchups a little bit, and he handled that with great grace, it’s something he had to get used to. It’s just him understanding what his reads are and where he can be super aggressive. He’s getting better and better at that. When he’s a play-maker for us, we’re a better team.”

The ball reached Holiday late in passing sequences in a manner similar to how Boston spread the ball around in its best passing games of the season at Portland on Monday. Mazzulla entered that game intending to move the ball through multiple layers of the Blazers’ defense, a revelation he took from the Nuggets game when the Celtics’ offense stagnated attacking matchups. Boston still went at Grayson Allen the same way it did Anfernee Simons that night and Jordan Clarkson in Utah on Tuesday. But they did it in the flow of the offense, dishing 31 assists to tie their 11th-highest total this season. It’s a newer approach the Celtics have discussed in recent weeks.

The past month has now seen Mazzulla state that it isn’t pursuing a set number of threes, just the best shot, though they’re still No. 1 in attempts since setting a season low in a win over Philadelphia late last month. His focus on passing up good shots for great shots in long, pass-filled positions contrasts his comments last year about how if you pass up an open look early in the possession, you might not get a better one.

“At our best, we get to that in different ways,” Mazzulla said on Thursday. “It’s recognizing how teams are guarding us, and knowing that we can get, more times than not, a really good shot, but we can get a really, really good one at different times … can we break down the layers, depending upon if it’s switching (or) if the big is up. Just continuing to work our execution reads, and just not settle for the first read every time. It’s also hard, because a lot of the time, the first read is a really good one. So we’ve just gotta have the discipline to be able to do both of those things.”

That game plan aimed to get Sam Hauser and Payton Pritchard looks while short-handed in the Blazers win, and that pair converted 3-of-6 from deep over the Suns. Porzingis’ absence, not expected to continue long-term after his did some on-court work before the game, pulled Xavier Tillman Sr. into extended action as Mazzulla’s lineup experimentation and a physically-imposing center matchup called for him. Horford and Tillman shared the floor for the first time since they hit a bump together in the Denver game, losing again (-11.8) across nine minutes. Luke Kornet played a pair of rotations in each half, proving susceptible to Phoenix’ matchup-hunting.

The Celtics’ bench lost its minutes overall (-1.8) in an intriguing test against a Suns second unit that could stagger a pair of their stars. Boston flipped its Brown and Tatum rotations, as Mazzulla has tinkered with recently, placing Brown alone for bench stretches sometimes by giving him Tatum’s first quarter rest. It worked for Brown to extend his 10-game streak scoring at least 20 points. For the offense as a whole, the Celtics will return to practice on Friday to watch fourth quarter minutes Mazzulla didn’t like where the Suns went small and Boston struggled to find advantages. Good and bad from a win — with process more of the focus ahead by 10.0 games in the standings.

“Sometimes we could get a good shot, but getting the defense moving will get an even better shot,” Brown said. “If we be a little more patient. We’ve been emphasizing that, especially since the Denver game, and we’ve bene implementing that more … Joe sets the tone with coming and being prepared first. He’s diligent. He allows us to be who we are … we haven’t had so many lapses. We’ve been the focused team, the smarter team. That’s coaching.”