On Wednesday night, the Boston Celtics walked into PHX Arena for a game against Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, and the Phoenix Suns. But from the jump, it looked like one team was playing a different game. The Suns scraped together a solid offensive attack for one quarter, but then they faltered. Boston was a well-oiled machine all night long.
Phoenix’s defense looked completely lost trying to guard the Celtics’ three-point-heavy attack, even with Jayson Tatum sidelined with an ankle injury. That’s simply the beauty of Boston’s incredible offensive game plan—it doesn’t need their best player. He’s just mastered its arts.
A 132-102 win was the result, and it was a product of ball movement, one-on-one victories, and a lot of threes.
Celtics offense looked broken vs. Suns (even without Jayson Tatum)
In the half-court, the Celtics do anything they can to find mismatches. Whether it’s Jaylen Brown in the post against guards, Tatum facing bigs on the perimeter, or Kristaps Porzingis posting up anyone (for the most part).
Boston’s philosophy is that one of two things will happen—either their guy will win his one-on-one matchup or the other team will send help, giving them an easy pass to find an open three. Usually, the latter is the case.
“We play the same style [without Tatum],” Porzingis said via Adam Himmelsbach of The Boston Globe. “Obviously, JT is the main guy and creates a lot of opportunities for us. But when he’s not out there, we have other guys to step into those roles and take more shots, take more responsibility, and create more. And yeah, tonight was a good night, even without having JT out there.”
Tatum is the best at running this style of offense. He’s the best playmaker on the team, his size allows him to make passes others can’t, and his ability to score in one-on-one situations is incredible.
But when he’s out, Boston still has ways to find mismatches. And Phoenix gave them plenty of ways to do so on Wednesday night.
On one play, Brown posted up Devin Booker, drew a second defender, swung the ball around the perimeter, and it came all the way back to him for an open three.
The play looks like elite ball movement, and that’s because it is, but some fans break down the game (or complain about it) the wrong way. Oftentimes, the go-to complaint is that the Celtics play one-on-one ball too much in place of good ball movement. In reality, one-on-one ball is what leads to good ball movement within the flow of Boston’s offense.
By forcing Phoenix to send a second defender at Brown, who is capable of beating Booker in a post-up scenario, the Celtics were able to initiate zip-zip passing, forcing the Suns into rotation.
But what makes the Celtics’ offense so special is that almost anyone on the roster can force a mismatch and create a great shot out of it.
The Celtics found Al Horford in the post against Collin Gillespie, forcing Phoenix to send help to the paint. Nick Richards and Ryan Dunn showed help, Horford kicked it out to Derrick White, and he got an open three.
White missed, but the point is, Horford’s mismatch created an open shot. (Plus, Horford got the offensive rebounds and earned a trip to the free-throw line.)
There’s a layer to this that is specific to the Suns. Historically, Mike Budenholzer-led teams give up a lot of threes in favor of protecting the paint. Against a team like the Celtics, that’s simply feeding into what they want.
Still, the fact that Boston is able to get such great shots without Tatum in the lineup is a testament to how they’ve tailored their offense.
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