Heading into Saturday night, the Clippers and Celtics were 29th and 30th in pace at nearly 96 possessions per game. For LA, fewer possessions make sense for their older roster. With 36-year-old James Harden and 34-year-old Kawhi Leonard, all attempts to limit their wear-and-tear are surely welcome.
Paradoxically for the Celtics, the slower “pace” is a matter of utilizing their speed and athleticism. They grind teams in the halfcourt with ball and player movement and constantly putting teams in jeopardy and making them make decisions with every screen, cut, and misdirection.
In Boston’s eventual 146-115 blowout of LA, the teams hit 92.50. Jaylen Brown hit 50 points alone. The team hit 24-of-51 from behind the arc, had just six turnovers, and finished with the highest offensive rating in franchise history.
After the buzzer, all Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue could talk about was the Celtics game plan.
“The play at a high pace — you can’t get back, you can’t get matched up. They played well tonight. I’ll give them credit,” Lue said. “I thought our guys tried to fight. We just couldn’t keep up with their pace and their speed…They had a terrific game. Their pace and their style, like I said, they play hard, they play fast, they move the basketball, and they’ve got a lot of shooters around the floor. They made 24 threes tonight. That’s hard to overcome.”
As CelticsBlog’s Azad Rosay pointed out in his Ten Takeaways, the Celtics, particularly Brown on offense and defending Leonard, won the isolation battle, but it was their ball movement that ultimately fueled their offense. Boston racked up thirty assists, their fifth time this season hitting 30+ dimes in all wins.
“The speed at which they did it. Communication. They put you in a bind,” Lue continued “When guys are flying around, moving fast…that’s the good thing about having speed and the way they play. They put you in tough positions. You think you’re switching, but you’re not and then two guys are going to one. They got open threes, you rotate, swing-swing shot. It really hurts with their small-small pick-and-rolls with their ability to slip out. It causes confusion.”
Check out Azad’s fourth takeaway to see a good example of Brown and Derrick White picking apart LA’s defense with their gravity and off-ball movement.
Here’s another pet play: the Spain pick-and-roll. PAUSE the video when the picks hit at the one-second mark. With Neemias Queta setting a pick on John Collins and Payton Pritchard simultaneously setting another on Brook Lopez, the action puts the Clippers in a knot and looks like an LA traffic jam. Who does Kris Dunn, the shortest player on the floor, defend? Are Collins and Lopez switching?
Hit PLAY. The play opens up three guys: Pritchard on the pop, Queta on the roll with Leonard helping, and in the end, Brown for an open 3.
As Lue said, “it causes confusion.”
