Team USA’s utilization of key Boston Celtics players could be the blueprint Brad Stevens needed to see.
For those that woke up early enough Wednesday, it was disappointing to watch Team USA make numerous mistakes down the stretch en route to an 89-79 loss to France in the FIBA World Cup tournament. They followed up this tumultuous play by garnering their second loss in a row to Serbia in a 94-89 disappointment that saw the United States trail 32-7 after the first quarter.
If you’re a Boston Celtics fan, however, there are some positives to takeaway from this tournament, and Wednesday’s game against France in particular.
The US struggled most of the game dealing with the aggressive pick and roll play from France involving Utah Jazz center, Rudy Gobert.
Both Myles Turner and Brook Lopez got their crack at stopping Gobert’s hard rolls to the rim while simultaneously trying to stuff guard penetration. Neither was successful.
The US would go down by double digits early in the third quarter and the game was slipping away, then two things happened.
First, Donovan Mitchell started to have an otherworldly offensive performance that will be lost to the annals of time since it was in a loss.
The other sudden turn of events was on the defensive end, as Gregg Popovich deployed both of the Boston Celtics’ stalwarts Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart to slow down Gobert.
It worked, temporarily.
Mid-way through the third quarter, with the combination of Mitchell’s offensive genius and the defensive prowess of Smart and Brown, the US would start a spirited comeback that gave them a 66-63 lead to end the third while leaving them in control through most of the fourth.
If plus minus stats are your thing, there were a lot of minuses for the US. As Celtic fans have grown accustomed to, Smart was the team leader with a + 7 while Brown was a -6.
This is intriguing for the Boston Celtics considering their best five players all play the perimeter and there have been many questions on whether or not all five players could share the court due to size restrictions.
Against Gobert, who is not known for his post-up skills, playing Smart and Brown to defend the paint was an effective strategy in the beginning but didn’t hold up forever. Against bigs with an advanced low post game? That likely wouldn’t bode well for Boston at all.
How many of those “traditional” bigs are still roaming around the NBA? Better question, how often would the Celtics play these giants?
Joel Embiid, Nikola Jokic, Karl Anthony-Towns, Anthony Davis and Andre Drummond?
There may be a few more worth arguing for, and that’s fine. The point is that most teams won’t punish the Celtics for running out Smart, Brown, Jayson Tatum, Gordon Hayward, and Kemba Walker.
There’s an argument to be made that with teammates and a more familiarized scheme, it could be effective for longer stints.
One last thing to touch on is Brown’s success playing the small ball four throughout his FIBA experience.
I’m not going to try and convince you that Brown should start at power forward when his defense is best used guarding the other teams best perimeter player, and Hayward and Tatum are more than capable of handling most fours.
Being versatile enough to play the position will open up more opportunity for Brown to play throughout games, while opening up playing time on the perimeter for guys like Brad Wanamaker, Carsen Edwards and Romeo Langford.
We’re still a long way from figuring out who fits where on this new look Celtics team, but these new wrinkles and opportunities could make it easier for Brad Stevens to fit the puzzle pieces together.