An ass whoopin'

The Celtics handed the Warriors their asses on a plate.

Who had that result on their bingo card? Heading into Sunday’s game, I was expecting a close-fought contest between a Boston Celtics team looking to keep their momentum going and a Golden State Warriors team frantically clawing to repair their season.

Only one team turned up. The Celtics tore the Warriors to shreds. If you read yesterday’s newsletter, you will know I was expecting Joe Mazzulla’s team to attack the rim. It made sense. That’s where Golden State is vulnerable. That’s been the Celtics MO this season — locate a weakness and exploit it until the defense adjusts.

Instead, the Celtics turned the pressure up on the perimeter. I shared some thoughts about that approach over on CelticsBlog earlier today. Allow me to share a snippet.

“You can’t send an emphatic message by attacking a weakness. If you want to be taken seriously, you need to hammer your point home. What is the best way to do that? Beat someone in an area they excel. Go against where they’re at their best and dominate. So, that’s what the Celtics did. They cooked the Warriors from three. They did what Golden State has done to teams on countless occasions.”

The game was over by halftime. It was a masterclass in how to dominate an opponent early. The defense suffocated Steph Curry. It collapsed on Jonathan Kuminga (who is going to be excellent in a few more years,) and it controlled the perimeter. The offense created space on the perimeter, hit the repeat button on actions when they were working - more on this shortly - and consistently got to their spots on the floor.

Time for some awards.

☘️Payton Pritchard: 19 points, 6 rebounds, 6 assists, 66.7 FG%

For me, Pritchard had one of the hardest jobs last night. At first, he played his normal role. He operated as an off-ball release valve on the perimeter. At times, he was an inverted screener, and others, he spotted up to keep the defense honest. On defense, he was a chaser and plugged gaps.

However, when Mazzulla sent the second unit out for the majority of the second half, Pritchard was tasked with leading that rotation and helping them keep their foot on the gas. That’s not an easy thing to do. It’s not like the Warriors’ second unit came out to simply roll over. They were playing for pride. And more importantly, they were playing for minutes.

Moving away from the narrative and into the performance, one thing I really liked was how much his change of pace was on display. Pritchard’s deceleration is an underrated part of his skill set. He’s got an elite “slow step,” as Luka Doncic recently coined it during an interview with JJ Redick.

One minute, Pritchard is shimmying, the next he’s blowing by you, and before you know it, he’s slowed down just enough to get his shot off while staying under control. It’s incredibly difficult to stay in front of a guy who can vary his pace like that, especially when their dribble is so tight and under control. Of course, his bread-and-butter remains his ability to hit movement threes, both as an off-ball cutter and as a shooter that steps into his looks on the catch.

Pritchard also made a significant impact on the defensive end. He held his man to 1-of-6 shooting from 3-point range and 2-of-7 overall. Due to his size, he’s often overlooked in terms of his defensive production, yet all season long, he’s been a dawg on that side of the floor.

According to Synergy, Pritchard boasts a defensive goal percentage of 40.9%, holding his man to 126-of-308 shooting. Of course, defense is a team effort. Individual performance certainly impacts, but a solid defensive system requires everyone to be on the same page and pull in the same direction. So, we must credit the system and the rotation when discussing defensive performance. Nevertheless, there’s a reason why teams don’t find much success when hunting Pritchard, and there’s a reason why it’s not the primary strategy — maybe that changes during the postseason, who knows?

☘️☘️Jayson Tatum: 27 points, 5 assists, 3 rebounds, 1 steal, 1 block

Tatum Tatum’ed. I think that’s the easiest way to put it. He eased his way into the game. He played defense, and then he got hot. From there, he started hitting jumpers off the dribble, off the catch, and found no problem getting to the rim whenever he wanted.

It’s hard to judge anyone off (almost) half a game, especially when the score was so lop-sided. Yet, Tatum, on his 26th birthday no less, played his role well and helped the Celtics produce their most dominant performance of the season.

This offensive possession pretty much sums up his overall production. Splits the perimeter defense, drives the lane, posts up on a mismatch, navigates almost losing his dribble, and somehow still finds a way to end the possession with a bucket. It was that sort of night for the Celtics. Even the stuff that could have gone wrong didn’t.

☘️☘️☘️Jaylen Brown: 29 points, 3 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 steal

Like Tatum, it’s hard to dive too deep into Jaylen Brown’s performance. However, he did handle the “disrespectful” defensive coverage well. He didn’t fall into a “prove you wrong” mentality. He took smart shots, nailed half of his threes, and scored six buckets on the interior.

“It’s the first time it’s ever happened to me,” Brown told the media after the game.“Honestly, I was a bit surprised. Took a little bit of adjusting. But I think we just took advantage of whatever that attempt was and just made the best of it...I get to the paint and I usually open it up for everybody else. But, if you wan’t to dare me to shoot, we can do that too. I thought it was a little disrespectful. But we took advantage of it.”

Brown overlooked the lackadaisical defense on him, played with professionalism, and consistently found himself with scoring opportunities. He also took on some of the most difficult defensive assignments, which is why he allowed 8-of-13 shooting. It’s not because Brown played bad defense; it’s because he stepped up into some of the tougher matchups the game had to offer — especially during the early exchanges where it looked like both teams had come to play.

🖋️Noteworthy news

🏀 Steve Kerr’s decision to sag off Jaylen Brown in order to protect from the drive wasn’t made until 15 minutes before tip-off.

“I don’t think we really played a full defensive strategy,” Draymond Green told the media after the game. “We implemented our strategy like 15 minutes before we left the locker room. So, I don’t necessarily think we put together a full defensive strategy to debate what they’re doing with their offense and how to stop it…I was actually all for it, like, let’s try it and see if it works. If it don’t oh well. If it does, we found something.”

🏀 The Celtics feel like this is their season.

"It's a lot of respect for the Golden State Warriors,” Brown said after the game, "but we feel like it’s our time now.”

🏀 The Celtics will face another tough test on Tuesday when they face the Cleveland Cavaliers. Donovan Mitchell and Co. have gone 5-and-5 in their last 10 games. However, the Cavs have been a hot commodity in recent weeks, surging up to second in the Eastern Conference. They’re going to be a tough opponent as the Celtics look to extend their current win streak.

🏀 Cleveland lost to the New York Knicks last night. However, they didn’t have Mitchell in their rotation. Still, that’s a big win for the Knicks, who continue to find ways to win despite navigating serious injury issues.

🎯 Primary Action

A core concept for any NBA offense is that when you find something that works, you keep going to it until the defense adjusts and stops you from finding success. Against the Warriors, the Celtics found significant success with their “Flare” series, where they went to a couple of different variations. Still, this is the one I liked the most.

You can see Brown setting the flare screen for Derrick White. The Celtics sometimes go to something out of their “chin” series in moments like these, but this was likely a play the Celtics had in mind. After Brown sets the flare screen, he turns into the roll man, receiving the entry pass from Tatum before working out of his fadeaway toolkit to get the bucket.

🎯Play of the game

Something is endearing about how Oshae Brissett plays the game of basketball. If you follow me on social media, you will know I wasn’t the biggest fan of his addition this summer. Not because I didn’t think he was good, but because of the addition of Lamar Stevens and their crossover as non-shooters. Brissett has won me over, though. I’m happy to admit I was wrong.

That’s why his dunk, late in the fourth quarter, earns the play of the game.

The game was already over. The Celtics’ win was in the books. Yet, here was Brissett balling his heart out, giving his all to his team and the fans in attendance. That’s how you win over a fanbase. That’s how you prove you’re capable of handling additional minutes.

I loved the heart and hustle he was showing. How you carry yourself in victory says a lot about your character. Refusing to take your foot off the gas is the biggest compliment you can pay an elite athlete.

Paid subscriptions are now active.

First of all, I apologize for the delay in sending out today’s newsletter. I wanted to make sure I had a gameplan in place to share with you all, and that the payments system was setup correctly. As I’ve said over the past few days, today was the day the paid tier of this newsletter would launch — despite my initially wanting to wait until next season. You can read my reasoning at this link.

Now that there’s a paid subscriber base, I wanted to share how things are going to look moving forward.

The aim is eventually to move to daily coverage, seven days per week. That will happen as the paid subscriber base grows, and I have the additional time and bandwidth to make that a reality — it all goes hand-in-hand.

For now, paid subscribers get unlimited access, while free subscribers will get one post per week. I’m not going to commit to a free day, as the game schedule often dictates what’s covered.

Of course, I reserve the right to open up additional days for free users based on the content produced — like an exclusive interview may be for paying subscribers and then 12 hours later become free. But for the most part, that’s how I envision this working.

With that being said, if you’re not a paid subscriber and would like to be, you can change that here.

🎦 Some video content

Above is a recap of the Warriors game. Below is a discussion on Xavier Tillman as potentially the next Al Horford — both are hosted by my co-hosts Will Weir and Greg Maneikis and premiers at 3:30 pm Eastern.

As always, feel free to hit me up or leave a comment.