A hole in Boston's defense?

Does the data point to a gap in the Celtics defense, or is there more to the story?

📰 News & Notes

☘️ Neemias Queta will fill the Boston Celtics’ 15th roster spot. According to Masslive’s Brian Robb, the fan-favorite big man has inked a multi-year deal with the franchise.

“Details of the contract were not disclosed per team policy but a league source told MassLive that the agreement is for multiple years,” Robb reported.

As I wrote back in March, I wasn’t a huge proponent of adding Queta to the main roster. Not because he wasn’t good enough—he’s proven that he’s capable of being an impactful big man within Joe Mazzulla’s system. Instead, my issue was adding a fifth big man to the roster. Still, as the playoffs have drawn closer and no new addition has come through the door, converting Queta has made more and more sense.

I doubt he will play meaningful minutes in the postseason. He’s likely going to be last on the team’s big man depth chart—at least for the remainder of this season. Nevertheless, he gives Mazzulla another option off the bench and is arguably the team’s most ready-made rim-runner.

The bigger question is whether Queta signing on for multiple years will affect Luke Kornet or Xavier Tillman during the summer, as both are entering free agency. Boston’s roster will continue to become more expensive, and finding cost-controlled assets that can make valuable impacts (like Queta) will be key to the Celtics keeping their core together.

☘️Kristaps Porzingis wins Eastern Conference Player of the Week. Since the start of April, Porzingis has been nailing his shots at a mouthwatering clip, converting 63.6% of his looks from the perimeter. His floor spacing, defense, ability to score across all three levels, and continued improvements at making reads out of the post have all been vital to the Celtics this season — and they’ve all been on show over the past week.

Porzingis is the fourth Celtic to win a Player of the Week award this season. Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum and Derrick White have all had the honor. Interestingly, Porzingis’ selection has earned the Celtics another spot in league history, as they become the first team to have four players earning the feat in a single season.

☘️ Isaiah Thomas completes his comeback. Ok, this technically isn’t Celtics news. Still, it’s awesome to see that Thomas has earned himself a deal with the Phoenix Suns until the end of the season. Similarly to Queta, I would be surprised if he earns himself any significant postseason minutes. He’s only averaging 3.5 minutes of game time with the Suns during their regular-season push.

Nevertheless, Thomas has clawed his way back into the league. He never took no for an answer and kept beating the odds. To me, that deserves celebrating. It is such a fantastic story of skill, talent and willpower.

An interesting find

There are differing opinions on the analytics movement within sports, and basketball is no different. Some believe that data-driven analysis is the best approach to seeing the whole picture. Others believe that the data is clouding what we see with our eyes in real-time.

Of course, these are complete opposite ends of the spectrum. I sit closer to the middle of this argument. I believe data and film study go hand-in-hand. The data guides you, and the film confirms, denies or provides context to the conclusions you drew from the numbers.

I’m also not a math whizz. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t suck at math. I’m not excellent at it, either. I prefer play-type numbers, defensive positional metrics, Estimated Plus/Minus, and other things. I keep my data as basic as possible — you can still get the conclusions you need and don’t need to understand advanced algebra to get there.

Now that the context is out of the way, yesterday, I stumbled upon a website called “Centers Culture.” It was created by MittyNBA, one of the better data guys out there for NBA stuff. It also features data and tools by Sravan, whom I consider a friend and who is exceptionally intelligent and gifted with data analysis.

When sifting through the site, one thing jumped out of the screen at me.

Defending DHO’s

The Celtics' defense struggles to impact opposing offenses in one specific and common play type. When guarding dribble hand-offs, they rank 25th in the NBA for points per possession (based on 100 possessions). They’re among the best in the league in multiple other categories. However, their defense has clearly fallen short when limiting scoring opportunities via hand-offs.

Obviously, I double-checked these numbers…Synergy confirmed them.

The conclusion I drew from this was easy: Some of Boston’s biggest postseason threats generate a fair share of their offense out of DHOs, including the Miami Heat, who could potentially be a first-round opponent for the Celtics, depending on how they play in tournament shakes out.

So, I went to the film.

Naturally, the first team I checked out was the Heat. Bam Adebayo has thrived as a DHO hub for Erik Spoelstra’s team for years, and this season has been no different.

Miami has two talented movement shooters, Tyler Herro and Duncan Robinson. Running them both over screens or into DHOs makes sense. The above clip shows the Heat running Kevin Love and Herro over the same elbow action. Adebayo runs “keep” with Love before initiating the DHO with Herro. Watch how Adebayo steps into a slight screen on Holiday, getting enough contact to slow him down by half a step. That’s all that Herro needs to get his hips squared and his shot off.

Plays like this are tough to guard. The chasing defender can’t always navigate a screen that comes out of nowhere. If the big man defender steps up, then a slip can occur after the DHO, blowing up the coverage. You can look to blitz, but then you’re leaving someone open one or two passes away.

Still, Derrick White could have stunted toward the ball in the above clip. Boston has to do better in impacting shooters in actions like this.

Another team that runs a DHO-heavy system is the Sacramento Kings…

This clip is a little different. The Kings flow into a drag screen in transition, with Malik Monk initiating a “Get DHO” with Domantas Sabonis. Jrue Holiday goes under the screen and gets himself in position to deter Monk from shooting the three. Instead, Sabonis flips the angle and re-screens (A Varajao screen), forcing Holiday to operate as a chaser.

Sabonis rolls into the paint, keeping Porzingis occupied and ensuring there is space around the elbow for Monk to get into a floater. Again, given the Celtics drop scheme and the Kings spacing, there was little Boston could do to impact the play.

The Philadelphia 76ers like to use Joel Embiid as a hand-off creator from time to time.

In this clip, we see something similar to the others. The DHO happens on the wing; Tyrese Maxey comes off the DHO, drops his shoulder, attacks the gaps in the defense; and White doesn’t pressure the dribble, and it’s another bucket.

I chose these three specific clips for two reasons.

1. They all illustrate how difficult DHOs are to guard. They put two or three defenders in the action, get the ball handler moving into space, and generate separation instantly with a quick screen. They’re designed to force help defense or leave openings to be exploited.

2. They’re a great way to attack a drop defense. Boston switches 1-through-4; the five-man is in drop. That means it’s tougher to switch actions on the perimeter when the big man is part of the offensive play. Therefore, the perimeter defender is at a disadvantage from the jump, as we saw with Holiday navigating screens by going over, under, or trying to shoot the gap.

That’s why the Celtics are top-locking and canceling DHO actions where possible.

We’ve all seen the Celtics operate this type of defense on the perimeter this season. This is called “canceling” and action — the aim in this instance is for White to position himself between the screen receiver and Jarrett Allen who is in the delay waiting to initiate the DHO. White’s presence forces the catch to be around the half-court line, killing the advantage and forcing the reset.

In this clip, Pritchard cancels the initial cut toward the DHO before Jayson Tatum stunts into space to threaten the top lock. That forces the offense to swing the rock into a second-side action that ends up being a wide PnR where the defense funnels the drive toward Kristaps Porzingis around the rim.

Conclusion.

This is why the data has to be explored. Yes, the Celtics struggle to contain opposing offenses after initiating a DHO. Their switch 1-through-4 with 5 in drop is susceptible to being attacked via curls over DHO’s, DHO get actions, and DHO drag sets.

However, the data doesn’t tell you that Boston blows up more DHOs than it allows to occur. Its defense is designed around “prevention is better than cure” when discussing hand-off-based offenses. That’s a massive caveat to the discussion that could easily be overlooked.

As such, it’s hard to quantify Boston’s DHO defense as a weakness. Yes, they can be susceptible, but no, they’re not about to be exploited. They will make you work for those possessions, and a lot of the time, they will win the early battle and force you into trying something different.

Some side notes

As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been caught up with life this past week. My best friend from L.A. was visiting. We’ve known each other since we were 2 or 3 years old. We were inseparable for years. Then, when we were 19 or 20, he moved to live with his dad. We speak to each other consistently, but we rarely get to chill with each other and the families we’ve built for ourselves. So, when we get that chance, it takes priority over most things.

I had a blast. Another one of my closest friends still lives near me, but we’re not caught up in a minute. So to have the three of us back together with our significant others and children in toe was surreal. I mean, I grew up with these guys. We were just coming out of diapers when we first started chilling. Now, we’re grown men raising families. Such a wild thing to look back on.

He flew back home yesterday. I’m assuming he’s back in L.A. by now. So, I’m back on the grind and getting geared up for the playoffs! I’m even more hyped now WrestleMania weekend is over…what a fun 48 hours!