How the Celtics' Offense Humiliated the Whole League

The Indiana Pacers and the Boston Celtics are two leading NBA offenses. While Indiana's offense is mainly Therese Halliburton who's having a wonderful season showcasing his unique passing abilities, Therese is Indiana's offensive engine that kept Pacers offensive rating for a quite long stretch at the very top of the league. But currently the Celtics are holding that first spot and what I love about Boston's offense is how many different success points that leads to made baskets they have. For example let me show you this out of a timeout Horns play. An incoming double ball screen near the top of the key but pay attention how Porzingis and Al Horford will immediately go to different directions. Al will pop to the three-point line while Porzingis will cut to the basket with an important task. While Nikola is closing out Al Horford Kristaps already has a good position in the box area sealing off MPJ but Porzingis gets fouled which means that the Celtics are taking the ball out of the sideline then Joe Mazzulla signals to repeat that same play. And so Boston will run the exact same play with a double screen Jamal Murray and Nikola will defend the ball handler the same way but here's why I love modern NBA offenses like the Celtics. You would think that the ball handler White is the most important player in this play but Big Al is the one who decides what's the next step of this play, what's the outcome, he's like a connector. So obviously he can simply let it fly because Horford is a 40% long range shooter and there's a good amount of distance that separates him and the closeout player. But Al is also well equipped to put the ball on the hardwood floor and penetrate the top of the key area while having the awareness to react how defenses will rotate. So MPJ has to slide over from Porzingis to help on Horford, meanwhile Aaron Gordon has to rotate to help on Kristaps leaving a wide open Jalen Brown. Couple of positions later same Horns play but this time Al Horford decides to take that wide open look that Denver keeps on giving to him and this is where the Nuggets tweak their approach in defending this play. This time Boston runs a Spanish PNR action and notice how Nikolas signals to Reggie Jackson to close out Horford as Nikolas switches and plays drop coverage on Derek White. So Denver instead of Jokic being level with the ball handler in PNR actions and then quickly closing out the rollman, Nuggets made Jokic to fully switch on Derek White. But the thing is, Derek is able to easily attack Joker on the switch and obviously this also doesn't work defensively for the Nuggets. And as the video continues it will become pretty evident that for any changes the opposition makes the Boston Celtics just picks a different tool from their toolshed and it still works. Starting the second half the Cleveland Cavaliers were switching every PNR action and the Celtics were eating up those switches but then the Cavs applied my already shown going level with the ball handler concept. The screen and roll actions with Porzingis are so efficient and hard to contain, right here Allen does a better job compared to Jokic at closing out Christophs but this is a 7-footer from Lepoya hitting a stepback jumper, can't really ask anything extra from Jarrett. The Boston Celtics are also really good at punishing defensive miscommunications, pay attention to how Kaaris Levert slowly positions himself between Porzingis and Hauser. Levert is directly responsible for Samhauser but he's also ready to come and help on Christophs if he gets the ball but then Samhauser makes a timely cut towards the rim and the Cavs defense gets easily confused. Jarrett Allen same as before is ready to close out Christophs, meanwhile Levert is lost, he doesn't know whom he should be marking or where he should be rotating. Samhauser his direct man is being guarded by Isaac Akuru and Isaac is in the corner. Meanwhile Levert decides to rotate to Christophs alongside Jarrett Allen, so both of them are closing out Porzingis and White makes a great composed decision to kick the ball out on open Jason Tatum, brilliant all-around play by White. Also like how Christophs didn't really do anything in this position but managed to track two defenders, that's what a 7-footer with an outset presence gives you, for reference this is how this exact defensive concept Brunson is placing himself in between White and Porzingis the same way Levert did it but the problem is that Jalen Brown doesn't read the defensive positioning as he doesn't wait for White to cut first and to see how Onyx react to that cut, so Brown attempts to stop a pass to Christophs while Varick is only attempting to slash to the paint and Jalen intercepts the ball. Before moving to my favorite offensive concept that the Boston Celtics use a lot, I would want to point out how Christophs is so dynamic, how he does so many different things. So we all know that he's efficient in PNR actions, specifically pick and pop, it forces miscommunications, confusions, as you've seen before the defense sometimes overthinks Christophs presence. This design plays a great example of the space that Christophs provides to the Celtics, so notice how Bama DiBaio, the Heat's main defensive anchor, is glued to Christophs all the way to the three-point line. So Tatum will set a screen on the top of the key while Caleb Martin, a solid defender, should be switching this but he's late to react, which puts the defender in a tricky situation to tag Derek White while leaving his direct matchup open in the corner and the ball doesn't go to Derek White. But also Porzingis has that Latvian ball IQ and knows how to move without the ball, pretty much just like everyone in the Celtics. In this situation, Jalen Brown sees himself getting caught in no man's land surrounded by three Cavaliers jerseys, Christophs is in the corner asking for the ball, but Allen's good position and a triple team on Brown makes the possibility of a pass impossible. So then Porzingis makes himself available with a well-timed cut and finishes with a tough layup against the great rim protector. Porzingis doesn't have the bounce he once had when he played for the Knicks but he's still such an annoying lanky seven-footer that doesn't just shoot long-range guns. Ever since coming to the NBA, Christophs proved to be a good offensive rebounder. He waits out for everyone to turn their backs anticipating a defensive rebound and then with his long strides he calips to snatch the ball. One last thing before the offensive Celtics concept. Many solid basketball teams have a rich inbound playbook and I've noticed one simple play where once again the Celtics have multiple ways to fulfill that play. First of all notice the spacing, both Brown and Holiday are tucked in in the corners while in the top of the key area Christophs will receive a screen from Derek White. Now Tyler Herro either should fully switch or simply tag Christophs and wait for Brian to recover from the screen, but Tyler doesn't do neither of those things as Porzingis gets an easy dunk plus the foul. Exactly same inbound play but unlike Tyler, Duncan Robinson does a great job in tagging Christophs and not allowing him to cut towards the basket. The problem is that Sam Hauser, Boston's snarpshooter is left unmarked. As Duncan is tagging Christophs and Bamadibi is looking to recover on his direct matchup, also Christophs, Sam Hauser uses that commotion to his advantage by immediately moving to the wing area. A brilliant out-of-bounds play, a good example how hard it is to defend against teams like Boston, there's just always a counter to everything you do defensively. Finally let's talk about my favorite offensive basketball concept that every good team in all of basketball including the Celtics use, point five concept. Simply put, you have half a second to decide what are you going to do with the ball, pass, drive or shoot. Having that in mind, Jalen Brown is kicking the ball out of a double team and notice how the strong side of the court is crowded with mixed players, while at the same time in the weak side you have a wide open big L. So Jalen is kicking the ball out to perimeter and then the ball quickly rotates to the opposite side of the court. So the idea here with the help of a split second decision making for the Celtics is to convert the advantage that they got from successfully beating that initial double team into points. This play is even more impressive, a quite similar situation, Jalen Brown gets the ball inside the boxed area but differently from the Knicks, Pacers are playing a 3-2 zone and they will actually do a decent job in rotating over and picking out Boston's players. And notice all the ball phase, the split second concept puts an enormous pressure on defenses, to keep sliding and closing out the pressure just keeps growing and when it seems that Jason Tatum is driving into Miles Turner and Halliburton is sliding over to Jalen Brown leaving no other options for Tatum, Buddy Hill loses his concentration and leaves his man in the corner. Not sure will this play top the previous one, nevertheless it's a great example of modern basketball. Celtics always have a 5-man lineup that can shoot. To top that, the fact that Ruhaldi and Derek White is elite on defense, you can easily employ 3 guards in your 5-man lineups, which improves ball sharing. This is a guard playing an inside-out game with the center who's the receiver on the perimeter. Big L doesn't get credited that much in this year's is amazing alongside Derek White, Drew and of course Brown and Tatum, but I just personally love bigs with guard-like skills. How quick-witted he is with reading what defenses are offering him, a similar play that we saw a couple of minutes ago, Jason screens at the top of the key, Bogdanowicz will tag Derek White and then close out Big L. Atlanta does a better job in anticipating this play and Bogdan doesn't fully stick on the cutting man, but then Bogdanowicz is required to aggressively close out Big L. And he's not the greatest defender, Harvard knows that and attacks Both Kristaps and L fit perfectly into the 0.5 second offensive concept as having bigs that can run your offense has become a staple for today's game and Boston having two bigs that has an excellent feel for the game is just too OP. A few years ago, Boston's half-court offense was basically one try for Tatum, one try for Brown. Compared to now, as I mentioned earlier, the Celtics offense is highly diverse with numerous different outcome points which leads to successful baskets.