A Stinker: 5 Takeaways From Celtics Loss to Thunder

It was all going so well. The Boston Celtics went into halftime with a 10-point lead. They looked good value to come out in the second half and make a statement against an Oklahoma City Thunder team that has been blazing an impressive trail this season.

Joe Mazzulla’s game plan was working. The Celtics were limiting the Thunder’s drive and kick game. They were impacting the ball in transition. And they had found some actions that were generating good shots.

Then, Mark Daigneault had a ‘hold my beer’ moment and gave a coaching masterclass. His adjustments, specifically on the defensive end, swung the game and put the Celtics in a vice grip.

Look at the firepower on Boston’s roster. The elite scoring, playmaking, floor spacing. Holding that team to 27 second-half points isn’t a fluke. It’s by design. Furthermore, Daigneault’s ability to kill any adjustments Mazzulla made was not only impressive but downright concerning.

It’s hard to draw any positives from a game that went sideways so badly. What’s worse is that any rationalization will come off as making excuses.

• Third game in four nights

• Rarely had the full rotation healthy

• Three’s weren’t falling

• Hauser, not himself

Each of the above reasons is fair. None of them excuse such a capitulation, especially not after a problematic December where inconsistency became a significant concern. Because, let’s face it, the first-half performance to the second half was the picture of inconsistency.

“Teams are scouting us and trying to disrupt us,” Jayson Tatum said during a postgame media scrum. “We’ve just gotta match that physicality over 48 minutes and own our space. And where possible, not let them dictate where we’re supposed to be and want to get to. That’s really important for us.”

That’s life, though. Things won’t always be perfect. Effort, energy and execution will falter at the most inopportune times. More importantly, you can’t control what the other team does and how they approach things. Last night, the Thunder took control because they took themselves to another level on both sides of the floor. And, when that happens, it can bite you in the ass — especially if it’s when you’re up against an elite opponent.

With all that being said, let’s dive into my five takeaways from last night’s loss.

1. From drop to switch

Oklahoma came into this game looking to play a drop defense, with Isaiah Hartenstein protecting the rim. Their perimeter defenders are aggressive and physical and have good length, so they’re probably used to funneling guys toward the rim. However, when you play drop against this Celtics team, with both Al Horford and Kristaps Porzingis in the lineup, you’re giving up an opening on the perimeter.

When guarding PnRs, Hartenstein was tasked with playing up-to-touch. He would often switch onto the perimeter before switching out to recover and protect the rim. Most of the time, this was done via a hedge-and-recover or switch-and-replace action.

Boston looked to take advantage whenever they pulled Hartenstein higher up the floor.

Take a look at the above clip. Watch how quickly Porzingis slips the screen and blows open the Thunder’s defensive coverage. Hartenstein isn’t a slouch in terms of moving his feet or changing direction, but his focus on trapping the ball-handler leaves the Thunder stranded on this play.

It was a similar story when I-Hart was tasked with operating higher up the floor when Horford—or any big—was either in the weakside slot (known as the 5-slot) or at the top of the perimeter. If he dropped deep, he wouldn't recover in time to impact a short or a DHO.

Boston looked to attack those possessions with empty-corner PnRs.

Daigneault adjusted that defensive coverage in the second half, moving to a ‘switch-everything’ system. That allowed the Thunder to up their intensity, throw out varied pick-up points, and use their speed, physicality and positional versatility to shut down Boston’s offense.

Even more importantly, it gave the Thunder the opportunity to zone up when the Celtics went to empty-side actions, effectively removing one of Boston’s biggest weapons and forcing the Celtics back to the drawing board. Earlier actions and secondary movements could potentially have countered this adjustment. I digress.

The Celtics shot 20% from the field in that second half. They went 8-of-40 and 2-of-24 from deep.

By switching everything, the Thunder increased their intensity and limited any potential space that operating in a drop or hedge defense can create. Daigneault also empowered Hartenstein by trusting him to guard up on the perimeter, knowing he had wings behind him willing to pinch toward the nail as a secondary drive deterrent.

When looking at the above clip, you could argue that Boston got the switch they wanted. Derrick White drew Hartenstein on the switch. However, that mismatch is only valuable if White looks to crack him off the bounce and penetrate. Settling for a contested jumper over a seven-footer is far from ideal.

Nevertheless, Oklahoma’s switching was likely a deterrent, as the shot clock wound down and the Celtics tried to manufacture some momentum.

You can see a similar defensive approach in this clip, too. There’s an off-ball switch on the corner. Then, there is a switch as Pritchard comes off the hand-off action with Kornet. Everything the Thunder did was designed to limit penetration and force difficult shots. Pritchard found himself taking a wild jumper that was uncharacteristically off-target. The Thunder might have been lacking in size, but their activity levels more than made up for it.

2. Failure to adjust

Whenever the Celtics lose while struggling on the perimeter, their three-point-heavy approach will be questioned. I generally believe that you should keep shooting as long as your approach remains the same and you generate high-quality looks.

However, there has to be a point where you accept things need to change. When you’re hitting just 20% of your total shots and more than 50% of those are coming from deep, maybe it’s time to mix things up a little.

Of course, under Mazzulla, that isn’t going to happen. To be fair, the Celtics won a championship playing this brand of basketball. They’re second in the East, playing this brand of basketball. And despite last nights loss, they’re still among the favorites to win another championship this season — due to their brand of basketball.

The thing is, the rest of the league is catching up. They’re learning how to rattle the Celtics. They’ve learned how to close down some of their actions. And they know Mazzulla, at times, can be inflexible with his system.

Last night was one of those inflexible times. Mazzulla didn’t open up his playbook. He didn’t instruct the team to lean into their size advantage and work out of the paint. Instead, the Celtics kept doing their thing, even though it quite clearly wasn’t working.

Frustrating.

Incredibly frustrating.

Look, I get it. It only takes one or two to fall, and then suddenly, the Celtics are purring again. Still, there has to be a point where you change course. Attack the rim. Play out of the post. Run some split actions out of the elbow.

DO. SOMETHING. DIFFERENT.

I’m not one to overreact to a loss. I still think the Celtics are going to be fine. But, this commitment to shooting 50% of your shots from deep, regardless of what’s happening in the game, is a risky strategy — especially now that teams are figuring out how to slow down your success rate.

3. The Turnover Game

The Celtics and Thunder are joint first in the NBA in turnover rate, averaging 11.9 per game. They take care of the ball. For reference, Cleveland is second or third with 13 per game, and NYK is next with 13.1.

According to Cleaning The Glass, Oklahoma came into this game, leading the NBA in defensive turnover percentage, forcing teams into a turnover on 18.9% of their defensive possessions.

The Celtics did a good job of holding their own in terms of forcing turnovers. OKC had 15, and Boston had 16. Sure, in an ideal world, the Celtics would have been smarter with some of their passes — that one with Porzingis feeding a bounce pass early in the 3rd comes to mind — but it’s not like they were pilfered at every turn, either.

The Celtics gave as good as they got here. They forced the Thunder into a 16.8% turnover ratio. The problem was that Boston failed to squeeze the orange the same way Oklahoma did. The Celtics scored 11 points off the 15 turnovers they created, while the Thunder scored 22 off the 16 they generated.

“That’s a product of poor spacing, poor physicality on the ball, and just poor screening,” Mazzulla said. “They’re a team that fights for matchups and, I thought we did a great job of that in the first half. But those 17 points off turnovers were the difference-maker down the stretch.”

It’s one thing to force teams into making a mistake; it’s another to capitalize on them. These two teams may have split the spoils in forcing turnovers, but the Thunder walked out winners in terms of who made them count. The Celtics have to do a better job of limiting scoring in transition and rallying into a defensive position after a mistake.

“Once they turned it up in the second half, we played stupid and gave some possessions away,” Porzingis said after the game. “Once you start giving up possessions like this, it was downhill for us, and we were battling uphill…The momentum was on their side.”

4. Scoring Struggles

We’ve already discussed how the Thunder adjusted to limit Boston’s offense. Now, let's examine the impact those adjustments had. In the second half, Jaylen Brown, Derrick White, Jrue Holiday, Payton Pritchard and Sam Hauser went a combined 0-of-19. That’s 0-of-13 from 3-point range and 0-of-6 from 2-point range.

You can’t win like that.

Furthermore, let’s add in Chris Forsberg’s recent tweet to provide even more context.

“Jayson Tatum averages 11.6 potential assists for the season,” Forsberg posted. “Yesterday in OKC he had 15. The Celtics made ONE of those 15 shots (a Porzingis oop in transition). 6.7% shooting on Tatum feeds. Wild.”

Hauser hasn’t been himself this season. I would assume a lot of that is due to the lower back problems he’s dealing with. But still, a night like last night illustrates the team’s need for an additional scorer on the bench.

Last season, Mazzulla could have plugged Svi Mykhailuk into the rotation to try to spark some perimeter success. Or he could have turned to Osahe Brissett for some energy and hustle. Boston has neither of those guys this year, and no one will replace what they brought to the table.

To be honest, I was quite surprised Mazzulla didn’t roll the dice on Neemias Queta down the stretch. His size would have given the Celtics a different dimension, and Boston had found some success when pressuring the rim out of double-big lineups during the first half.

Still, the lack of bench help is a secondary concern — even though, for me, it’s a legitimate one. The biggest worry is how effectively Boston was shut down. Brown’s slide was especially interesting, as Lu Dort put him in jail during the second half.

“We moved Dort onto him,” Daigneault said. “He started the game on Tatum, and then Dort went to him once he got it going. I though Lu did a great job on him…It’s not much of an adjustment, it’s just more pressure, more grit and more intensity.”

According to NBA.com, Dort guarded Brown for 4:39, which equates to 24.1 partial possessions. During that time, Brown went 0-of-4 from the field, with three of those shots coming from the interior.

Dort is one of the best defenders in the NBA. He’s physically strong, has a great understanding of angles and positioning, and produced an elite performance to silence Boston’s best scorer on the night. It’s also worth noting that Dort held Tatum to 0-of-3 shooting in 5 minutes of guarding him, and also forced a turnover.

Brown is supposed to be a top-15 or top-20 guy in the NBA. He’s used to having elite defenders attempt to shut him down. Both he and the Celtics should have recognized he was struggling and looked to run actions to pull Dort off of him — that’s how you attack a switching defense. Instead, we saw a lot of broken plays and stagnant isolation possessions.

5. Out Hustled

The Celtics lost the chess game and the game by large margins. However, OKC consistently came out on top in the hustle battle. They had more deflections (15) than Boston (12), drew more charges (1), and contested more shots (41-36).

The Celtics came away winners in both screen assist points and loose balls recovered. However, when you’re not scoring in the open floor, and second chance opportunities aren’t yielding the desired results, winning in those areas is somewhat moot.

Without Alex Caruso — who is elite at thriving in and creating chaos, the Thunder still found a way to edge out some of the grittier battles. Part of that is playing on your home court and giving your all to the fans in attendance. The other part, as much as it’s a cliche, is that they wanted it more. They wanted to win. They wanted to send a message. And they wanted to prove they could be a championship-level team.

Outworking the reigning champions while shutting them down and attacking their defensive coverages isn’t easy. Yet, somehow, OKC made it look like a cakewalk.

I wouldn’t expect to see the Celtics get out-hustled too often. However, I didn’t expect such a shaky December, so there’s that!

Final Thoughts

A loss is a loss. And when you're used to your favorite team winning at the rate this Celtics team does, those losses hit a little harder. I’m not concerned. The first half was encouraging and showed that the Celtics team could still be the best unit in the NBA.

However, the lack of adjustments and willingness to keep doing what wasn’t working is frustrating. As is the limited creativity when trying to break down a Thunder defense that clearly came to shut things down in the second half.

Another tough night is right around the corner, too. The Denver Nuggets aren’t going to take things easy just because the Celtics got their asses kicked. Instead, they’re going to smell blood in the water and want to pile on the misery.

Hopefully, Mazzulla’s team will come into that game with a point to prove. No matter what, though, the tactical battle from last night has me fully sold that an NBA Finals matchup between the Celtics and Thunder would be ridiculously fun — assuming Boston ended up squeaking out a second championship, of course.