Flipping a switch

The Celtics found a way to grab a victory from the clutches of defeat.

About 10 years ago, I was sitting in an office in the middle of Birmingham, UK. I was working for an online poker company at the time. One particular afternoon, I was talking about the NBA with a co-worker. Midway through the conversation, someone else chimed in with, “Basketball is cool, but you only need to watch the fourth quarter.”

I was flabbergasted.

“Why just the fourth quarter?”

“Because that’s when teams really turn it up. You see the best basketball in that one quarter.”

I disagree with that statement. Frankly, I was insulted. There is so much amazing stuff happening on the court at any moment. We’re watching a live chess battle, night after night.

A team can be probing how a defense reacts to certain actions or shot profiles before making a killer adjustment. Players get hot early or start off cold. Every game is its own entity. Every possession has its own battle: the game within the game.

I’m not sure whether I’ve shared this story before. I probably have because it always sticks out to me as a reason why the sport I love so much is criminally underrated on these shores.

However, on Sunday night, against the Philadelphia 76ers, the Boston Celtics made me somewhat of a liar. Because, in that game, in that moment, everything was about the fourth quarter.

Since Dec. 1, when the Celtics became an inconsistent unit, the common consensus has been that they will ‘flip the switch’ when the time comes. Whether that time is in the postseason, leading up to the All-Star break, or when at risk of being blown out. ‘The Time’ was never specified — just that a proverbial switch was always waiting to get flipped.

Once again, that’s a statement I disagree with. Or at least, I did. Perhaps I was wrong.

I’m a firm believer in the value of building winning habits. I’ve written about that value numerous times over the past 2 months, so I’ll spare you the details this time around. Still, the longer Boston’s malaise has worn on, the less I’ve been convinced this magical ‘button’ would work when the Celtics needed to flip it.

Yet, in the final minutes of the third quarter and the entire fourth quarter against the Sixers, the Celtics hit that switch. They flipped it. They spammed it like a professional C.O.D. player. And in return, they walked down Nick Nurse’s team, bucket after bucket, stop after stop. We saw the Celtics. The same Celtics that started this season. The same Celtics that dominated last season.

It’s like everything fell into place.

The 0.5 decision-making was back on display. Quick, sharp and impactful decisions that caught the defense in rotation or before it had even set up. Take the above clip, for example. There was no isolation. The ball didn’t stick.

Jaylen Brown hits Jayson Tatum, who was trailing the play. Tatum catches the ball and instantly re-directs it to Sam Hauser. A smart back screen from Luke Kornet stops Hauser’s man — who was cheating off him — from recovering out to the shooting threat. As such, Hauser had plenty of time to set his feet and get his shot off as Bona faced up to take away a drive.

This is the Celtics at their best. The ball moves. They find and attack advantages. They read and punish a defense. And, if the defense is well organized, they create mismatches to exploit, both on a possession-by-possession basis and to set things up throughout a game.

Here’s another reminder of how the Celtics look when they commit to being a ball-moving roster. This possession starts off with a staple empty side from the Celtics, with Brown threatening to burst through his defenders and attack the rim.

The ball stuck a little more on this possession, but the defensive manipulation was there. From Brown’s shallow cut into a screen to the way Kristaps Porzingis waited for the defense to close out on him before hitting an open Derrick White.

When the Celtics flip that switch, they become a totally different kind of threat.

“We just had to be honest with ourselves at halftime. Our competitive spirit wasn't where it needed to be," Tatum said during a postgame news conference. "Joe was like, 'Yo, if you are tired, just tell me. I'll sit you guys down and let the Stay-Ready Group play.' And we just had a choice to make. He kind of challenged us at halftime. The way we were playing in the first half was not representative of who we are as a team and as an organization. We took it as men and responded.”

While seeing the Celtics find their rhythm on offense and go back to what works when generating quality shooting opportunities was great, I was equally impressed with how easily they locked in on defense. Interestingly, a lot of what worked for them against the Sixers was playing up-to-touch.

Having the length of Tatum, Brown and Porzingis in the above clip was integral to executing the coverage Boston opted to run with. Porzingis, who was up-to-touch on Guerschon Yabusele, gets switched onto a ball-handler on the perimeter.

Tatum shades over, and Brown digs out of the corner, shrinking the space for the ball-handler and pressuring a pass. The result is an errant decision that leads to a turnover. When you’re able to pressure gaps in this way while limiting the amount of space you’re tasking your big man to guard in, you’re putting yourself in a strong position to either get stops, force mistakes or grind down the offense over the course of a game.

Another aspect of the Celtics' defense that I liked—which was part of the team’s overall approach and didn’t manifest when the ‘switch was flipped’—was Porzingis rotating over out of the strong side corner. That little tweak—which we’ve seen plenty of times before—resulted in the veteran big man getting five blocks on the night.

He won’t always be most useful as a strong side helper, but when playing a team like the Sixers, who like to play at pace and get downhill, Porzinigs’ lateral movement, length, and impressive timing can be significant weapons as he rotates over.

What projected to be another nightmare loss for the Celtics ended up being one of their best wins of the season. The win also meant the Celtics have strung 3 wins together for the first time in weeks. There are signs of the team figuring it out.

Still, things should never have gotten to the point where a switch needed flipping. The Sixers were down Joel Embiid and Paul George. Hopefully, this performance was a wake-up call for the Celtics because they should be playing like they did to close the game night in and night out. Here’s hoping we see more of that production level moving forward!

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I had to step away from this newsletter last week as I had to hit some targets after being sick during January. I’m a bit late getting to today’s post — first day back led to some writers bl’s block. Still, I'm glad to be back in the saddle, and I'm looking forward to working toward the 3,000 subscriber goal throughout the year!