The Morning After: Guarding DHOs Is Becoming an Issue For The Celtics

The Raptors found and exploited a growing weakness in the Celtics defense.

Depending on what viewpoint you take, you’re either awfully zen about the Boston Celtics loss to the Toronto Raptors on Wednesday, or your hand is firmly on the panic button. Of course, if you’re like me, you’re sitting somewhere in the middle, slightly leaning toward the Phil Jackson of it all.

That doesn’t change the fact that Boston is now 12-9 since December 1. Nor does it alter the truth that for half of the season so far, the Celtics have been this exact version of themselves: Inconsistent.

In the same breath, that doesn’t mean the Celtics are ‘cooked’ or ‘washed’ as the cool kids would say. It means there are areas to work on. Things to improve. And habits to build. There’s a middle ground here, where we accept this isn’t the same team that we saw last season while understanding that evolution is inevitable in the NBA — especially if you’re trying to build something special.

Unfortunately, evolution, or any form of growth, doesn’t happen overnight, and neither does resolving multiple issues within a team or its system. Instead, you try to work on fixing one or two things at a time, compounding those improvements over weeks or months. Judging by Wednesday’s loss, I think I’ve found an area of growing concern, at least for me.

Guarding DHO’s

The Celtics have struggled to guard DHOs this season. According to Synergy, they rank 22nd in the NBA for defensive points per possession, allowing 0.97 points, which might as well be rounded to a clean 1 point per possession.

The Raptors played into this weakness, often using Jakob Poeltl as a DHO hub on the wing or at the elbow. From there, they ran guys off his DHO threat, either as a receiver or as a decoy, putting the Celtics de’ defense into rotation and exploiting any gaps that arose.

Here is the first example of Boston’s defense being put in a tough spot via an elbow DHO. The play starts off with a ball reversal before finding Poeltl just above the elbow. Scottie Barnes chases after his pass to his veteran big man, threatening to get downhill via a get action (throw the ball to a player and then go get it back.)

Instead, Poeltl opts to keep the rock, as Barnes sets a wide-pindown for Gradey dick, leading to an elbow zoom set. Here’s an annotated breakdown of where we’re at right now.

From here, the Raptors are on the front foot. Boston’s defense has reacted to the action occurring on the strong side, and Dick’s penetration after turning the corner has forced a response. That’s where things break down a little. Let’s take a look with another annotated video.

Once Dick turns the corner, both Kristaps Porzingis and Jaylen Brown ‘pinch in’ at the nail, limiting Dick’s ability to be a scoring threat on the drive. However, while this is happening, Tatum’s man has cut across the baseline, taking Tatum with him. That leaves an empty corner for RJ Barrett to fill, while his man — Brown — is picking up the threat of Dick in the form of a stunt to give Pritchard time to recover.

Before the Celtics knew it, Dick had sprayed the ball out to Barrett, who was wide open after sinking into space, and the play ended in an easy catch-and-shoot.

On the surface, the Celtics had a good defensive process. However, Brown overcommitted on the stunt, allowing Barrett to attack the space. There was likely minimal communication indicating the baseline cut. Pritchard needs to use his speed better to close the distance when chasing in rearguard pursuit.

The problem for Boston is that once an NBA team finds an action that works, they will lean into it until a defense figures out how to stop it…

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And that leads us to the next DHO action that gave the Celtics some trouble.

No annotation is necessary on this one. The Raptors feed Barrett at the elbow and instantly flow into a get action, with Jamal Shead getting downhill as a result. Jrue Holiday ‘nexts’ or ‘switches’ the pentration and angles his body to deny a driving angle. However, Holiday is a beat to slow, allowing Shead to get a solid angular drive toward the paint. Porzinigis also fails to rotate over and add some secondary rim protection despite Poeltl being on the perimeter and not posing a catch-and-shoot threat.

This action was too simple for the Celtics to get smoked so easily. Holiday had to move his feet quicker, and Porzingis had to rotate over and fulfill his duties as the weakside roamer. Horford was on hand to tag or close out if Poeltl looked to crash. Splitting the difference isn’t a new concept.

I’m not going to lie, the limited defensive execution in the above clip annoys me. Let’s dive in.

Above is an annotated clip from the opening two-thirds of this play. Again, it starts with feeding someone on the elbow — this time, it’s Poeltl. Barnes and Barrett execute a split cut in the weakside slot. Barnes’ cut removes Horford from the perimeter, allowing more room for Barrett to curl toward a DHO.

Brown, who was poor on both sides of the floor in this game, showcased some poor screen navigation, putting the defense under pressure to react. As such, Tatum switched out of the corner to pick up Barrett’s drive. The idea here is that Tatum and Brown Peel Switch, meaning Brown recovers out to the corner, ensuring there’s no advantage for the offense. 

Unfortunately, Brown struggles to bounce back after running into the Poeltl screen and doesn’t close out to the corner, leaving a man wide open and blowing up the defensive coverage. There’s certainly a bit of tunnel vision from Brown and a total lack of effort and execution.

There’s also an argument to be made that Porzingis and Brown could have switched, allowing Porzigins to meet Barrett’s drive, with Tatum digging and recovering to pressure the ball while protecting the corner.

The defense in the above clip was abhorrent. Top to bottom. You can point to three guys as part of the problem here. All out of a simple DHO and drive off the elbow.

It’s a genuine issue.

These struggles extended into the third quarter, too. This time, the Raptors fed into a two-man game out of the DHO, allowing Poeltl to get some offensive looks at the rim after slipping into the paint (via a brush screen with Tatum).

What I liked about the Raptors’ performance was how Poeltl flashed to the elbow when he saw resistance on Barrett’s drive. He manufactured himself into a release valve for the possession in an area he knew would create issues for the Celtics.

As you would expect, Boston switched this action. However, Poeltl’s brush screen set Tatum back by a step or two, giving Poeltl room to operate and pressuring Holiday to rotate early—which he didn’t.

The next clip is the last one and is just for fun. If you’ve been here a while, you know I’m a fan of blind pig actions. So, when the Raps ran one out of a DHO setup, you best believe I pulled the clip.

The fun part is, they ran the action, but Boston actually shut it down. Credit Hauser for his weakside rotation, it was on time and on point. Loved it.

Concern level

I'm currently re-reading 'Atomic Habits' by James Clear. I'm always looking for ways to improve myself. One of my key takeaways from this book is that micro-changes can lead to big knock-on effects. Turning up to the gym for an hour per day, 4 days per week, is a micro change. It's a 4-hour alteration out of an available 168. Yet, the changes that one alteration can make are massive.

You get healthier. You eat better. You get stronger, faster, leaner. You look better. Each of those changes, on their own, are micro changes. Yet, they all have a significant knock-on effect.

Take my experience: Between 18 and 23, when I stopped playing basketball and before I had my daughter, I was a heavy pot smoker. After my nan passed away, I was tempted to slide back into that habit because it was comfortable and an easy way of suppressing my feelings. I don't like being drunk, so that was never a worry.

Instead, I picked up vaping. That micro change led to my worst habit. Now, I'm implementing other small changes - back doing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, lifting weights, watching my calories - to force a bigger adjustment. I know that within the next 3-6 months, those changes will make me want to quit vaping. That's how this works, and the book does a good job of explaining it.

I shared that because it helps illustrate my point: Fixing one issue on defense can have a profound result elsewhere on the floor. If teams can't generate consistent success when running DHOs, the defense doesn't get exploited. It stays intact and is prepared to shut down other forms of attack.

Those additional stops can lead to run-outs or rhythm shots off staple actions within the offense. One thing bleeds into another.

With that in mind, my concern level is sitting at around a 4 or a 5. There are still 42 games left of this season. There's still plenty of time to build those positive habits and implement those micro changes.

Don't get me wrong, I want to see more urgency, I want to see more commitment, but I'm also aware it's the regular season of a championship defense. Sometimes, champs take their foot off the gas.

Still, if they can start shutting down these DHOs, things might start to pick up, or at least there will be a sign of growth that we can point to and know they're working behind the scenes.