BOSTON — Al Horford’s mind raced during the hour following the Celtics stealing Game 1 from the Pacers. Beyond Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum’s game-saving, the pace, persistence and pressure the Pacers put on the rim left Horford torn. Boston allowed the shots it wanted to, but Indiana overwhelmed them with 128 points on 53.5% shooting.
“It’s hard to tell right now, because the way I prepared for this, the shots at least I feel like I gave up are the shots that I can be ok with the result,” Horford said. “Play good defense. Mid-range pull up jump shots but I definitely will go back and look at it, and even in that regard, I want to be better. I’ll make sure I’m better defensively for this next game.”
The Celtics asserted their willingness to live with twos over threes and the enormous success Indiana had inside the arc while shooting 10 fewer attempts from three than Boston continued that strategy. It also tested it, with the Pacers only making two threes less than the Celtics did while shooting 52.2% from mid-range and 75% at the basket. The Pacers went on to miss both in-between shots they took in overtime, a slight regression after Boston nearly lost in regulation. Now, Joe Mazzulla has to decide how much he wants to adjust.
He pointed toward lineup changes being unlikely at practice on Wednesday, calling the Celtics’ defensive issues more execution-based than due to personnel. Yet Luke Kornet disappeared from the second half rotation after playing 13 minutes early to help spell Horford, who largely oversaw Boston’s pick-and-roll defense falling to last out of 16 playoff teams in efficiency. Horford and Kornet struggled to track the Pacers’ wings around handoffs, saw mid-rangers go up over their heads and in while spending ample time on the perimeter. Kornet also credited Indiana’s relentlessness over something Boston didn’t do.
“With (the Pacers) ability to play different lineups. The way they sub, they sub 2-3 guys at a time,” Mazzulla said when asked about possibly playing small. “They’re willing to go away from sub patterns for certain guys. You just gotta be wary going to any and everything at any particular time. It’s something our guys have done a great job of, staying open-minded to whatever makes the most sense in the game and being ready to execute. So yeah, I think anything’s on the table versus a team like this because of their versatility … it always goes back to execution first. We’ve done a good job with the 9-10 guys that have played of being open-minded … going to different matchups, going to different types of defenses.”
Boston didn’t get to ultra-small ball often during the regular season. Tatum played briefly alongside Brown and Sam Hauser or Oshae Brissett in the front court next to two guards for less than five minutes total. A three-guard look with Payton Pritchard in lost its five minutes across eight games and struggled to rebound, as did a look that featured Brissett and Hauser with Brown off the floor. The only small look that succeeded came as a result of a late Kornet scratch against Orlando that pulled Lamar Stevens, since traded, into winning minutes at the five.
It’s more likely Xavier Tillman Sr., who arrived in return for Stevens, would try playing some five when he returns to the team from his absence for personal reasons on Thursday. His foot speed and ability to guard multiple positions while switching bodes well against Indiana, at least better than Kornet in this matchup. Mazzulla doesn’t want the Pacers to force him to do something drastic, saying that withstanding Indiana’s randomness is key.
“They generate a lot of chaos and noise,” Mazzulla said. “They want you to be scrambled as to what you’re willing to live with and take away. Every game is different and every matchup is different, and so that might change, but at the end of the day, the most important thing is making sure our team, our guys, our matchups have a clear understanding of what’s good defense regardless of the result, and what is not good defense regardless of the result. That’s where this team tests you, because of their ability to put up 130, 140, 150 because of the speed that they play, it can be very difficult for most people to (not) be like, ‘oh, they’re not defending,’ or, ‘oh, they need to take this or that away.”
Rick Carlisle rolled out 13 lineups as part of that strategy and won seven of them in Game 1, courting 10 players and winning the bench scoring battle. Most of them played short spurts, three players entering the game after five minutes before Isaiah Jackson played a two-minute stint to end the first. Jalen Smith allowed Indiana to play big into the second unit for one minute, then went even bigger with Toppin, Siakam and Turner, only to put Aaron Nesmith in for Toppin two minutes later. Boston only played eight lineups, and rolled the starters for 27 minutes including the entirety of the fourth and overtime. They won their time on the floor by 22.4 points per 100 possessions. Another reason to not worry.
The bench fared less consistently though, which opens the door to experimentation that Mazzulla considered, but didn’t sound fully committed to. Staggered bench rotations like Kornet with the starters and Pritchard playing with Sam Hauser and three starters fared decently, as did Pritchard playing for Brown with the starters. Both Horford and Kornet looks left Boston susceptible inside the arc though, which the Celtics could live but pushed them to their breaking point to begin a series that’s now played every other day.
“There are 6-7 guys on our bench that can really contribute,” Haliburton said. “If our starters are playing well and our bench isn’t, that’s ok … or vice versa, that really helps, but I think when we’re both really clicking, we’re a really tough team to beat, because I think that we just got fresh guys in the game at all times. I think that helps us play the way we want to play, which is to wear on teams for 48 minutes and it’s a seven game series … how can we wear on them throughout the course of a series … we had a lineup out there with me, TJ, Andrew, all of our point guards on the floor at the same time … we play small ball sometimes with Pascal and Obi in there at the five. We play big sometimes with Pascal, Obi and Myles. We can just mix it up and throw different looks at teams.”
