The Boston Celtics have been on a roll lately. They just laid a beatdown on the New York Knicks, earning a 118-105 win on Sunday afternoon, but the lead was as large as 24 earlier in the game. They also picked up a huge win over the Philadelphia 76ers in their first game back since the All-Star break. And in both games, they deployed an elite defensive strategy.
Instead of guarding Joel Embiid and Karl-Anthony Towns with Kristaps Porzingis, they had Jrue Holiday, Jayson Tatum, and Jaylen Brown match up with the centers, and Porzingis played a roamer role, helping over into the paint to stop drives. “Those guys are going to do whatever it takes to win,” Joe Mazzulla said after the win over New York. “It allows us to keep our defensive versatility [and] play different matchups.”
And it’s completely shut down both teams.
Unique Celtics defense, led by Jrue Holiday, completely shut down Knicks and 76ers
Holiday, Brown, and Tatum are versatile enough defenders to guard Embiid and Towns, so neither is able to take full advantage of the mismatch. And even when they get deep post position, the Celtics simply double quickly and turn them into playmakers.
Against the Sixers, this led to a couple of open threes, and they converted, but Philadelphia doesn’t have enough talent around Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, and Paul George to make the Celtics adjust their game plan.
Jrue Holiday is leading a Celtics defensive game plan that is absolutely crushing opponents pic.twitter.com/lyIWuEfU2a
— Jack Simone (@JackSimoneNBA) February 24, 2025
But against the Knicks, the Celtics’ true cheat code came into play.
New York’s fatal flaw on offense is that Josh Hart isn’t a consistent three-point shooter. This meant that the Celtics were able to put Porzingis on Hart, giving him plenty of leeway to help over into the paint and stop drives from Jalen Brunson, Mikal Bridges, and others.
Hart’s inability to consistently hit threes and affinity for cutting to the hoop completely ruined New York’s spacing because Boston wasn’t guarding them traditionally.
“That's key for us to be able to be versatile,” Brown said. “So, I think we take pride in that. In matchups, in being able to switch, in being able to guard guys. So, that'll be a strength of ours going into the playoffs. We just got to stay healthy.”
Usually, the Knicks like to use Towns’ three-point shooting as a threat, drawing bigs out of the paint because of his gravity. But since Tatum and Holiday guarded Towns for most of the game, Porzingis was free to troll the paint and stunt the Knicks’ attempts to get inside.
Having this level of versatility available to them unlocks so many different looks for the Celtics on defense, and it throws a huge wrench into opponents’ game plans.