Jrue Holiday is quietly having one of his best playoffs yet for Boston Celtics

When Jrue Holiday was acquired by the Boston Celtics last summer it made them favorites in the East, projecting them above Holiday's former team the Milwaukee Bucks. What some Bucks fans brought up for concern as one of their best players was now on a rival franchise, was that Holiday had trouble in the playoffs and lacked consistency in comparison to his regular season numbers.

Holiday won a title with the Bucks in 2021 but took some criticism for his playoffs the following two years, mainly for his shooting. Over the 2022 and 2023 post-seasons, he averaged .306 from three in the playoffs on over seven attempts per game and .384 on all field goals. This was a significant drop from his regular season averages over the same timeframe of .396 from three and .490 on field goals.

Despite poor shooting splits, he averaged 18.7 points per game in those playoffs. This was mainly because his usage was so high as Milwaukee's main initiator, 28.5 percent in 2022 and 25.3 percent in 2023, ranking in the 62nd and 50th percentiles, respectively, among point guards per cleaningtheglass.com. Holiday held similar usage workloads in 2021, and similar shooting numbers. It just wasn't a problem because the Bucks won the championship.

This year Holiday is having one of the best playoffs of his career, despite his field goal attempts, and hence his scoring seeing declines. His usage is down to 15.5%, 28th percentile among combo guards, as he and Derrick White both split the point guard duties. He is averaging 12.7 points and 4.6 assists but he's doing so with terrific efficiency. On field goals he is shooting .489, his second-best career percentage in the playoffs, and .397 from three, his third-highest.

Boston Celtics have found a sweet spot for Jrue Holiday on offense

What Holiday and the Celtics have done is found a sweet spot for Holiday's workload offensively with most of the scoring load being handled by Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. This then benefits the Celtics on both sides of the ball. Offensively, Holiday isn't stretched so thin that his splits start to see diminishing results like they did in Milwaukee. Plus he is shooting so well that the Mavericks' defense will need to stick to him as a spot-up shooter, giving Tatum and Brown more space on the inside. It's what the Celtics offense was built on with Holiday and White both shooting lights out in this playoff run.

In turn, because of his decreased usage, Holiday also has as much energy as he needs to be the defensive dynamo that he is. This is something he will need in the next series as it's assumed he will take the Kyrie Irving assignment and switch on to Luka Doncic at least some of the time.

The Mavericks will be the most dynamic offense and defensive challenge for the Celtics this playoff run, as it should with the highest competition being the NBA finals. What Boston has done is build a team equipped to handle nearly any challenge and part of that is Holiday's experience in the Finals. Having a guy who has been there and won before while he's playing some of his best basketball is invaluable to this team.

Holiday extended with the Celtics in April and has proven to be worth the cash. He's a player whose impact goes far beyond what can be quantified in a box score. And while he is scoring less, he's having a career playoff run shooting the ball. Moreover, he's found a way to excel in his role along with the other four guys on the court.

Now the only thing left is to get the last four wins.