Three Surprises From The Boston Celtics Start To The Season

Some things that I didn't expect, for better or worse.

Coming into the season, we all had that familiar narrative locked and loaded: the Boston Celtics were destined to steamroll through the NBA, a juggernaut so formidable that opposing teams might as well order their playoff elimination notices in advance. First seed? Inevitable. Championship? Just a matter of time.

But here we are, 24 games deep, and while a 19-5 record suggests dominance, the journey hasn't exactly been the smooth, cinematic triumph we'd scripted. Joe Mazzulla's squad has been more "gritty thriller" than "triumphant blockbuster" – grinding out wins, showing flashes of brilliance, but also leaving us with raised eyebrows and plenty to dissect.

The lack of a Celtics game means it's time to dig into the storylines that have caught us off guard, from player developments to potential red flags moving forward.

So, here are three surprises from the Celtics' first quarter of the season: some might make you nod in approval, others might have you scratching your head. Let’s dive in.

Payton Pritchard 6MOY Candidacy

I’m a big Pritchard fan. I love the intensity. I love that he loves to hoop. And I think he’s shown development every season he’s been in the league. But nowhere, and I do mean nowhere, did I envision him becoming a game-changing, swashbuckling, soul-snatching NBA version of Hawkeye. I mean, this guy is trying out for the Basketball Avengers.

Pritchard is 1st in the NBA for total points off the bench with 386 — 50 points ahead of Mo Wagner in second and almost 100 points ahead of reigning Sixth Man of the Year, Naz Reid (292).

He’s also leading the NBA in made threes off the bench with 89, which is 28 more than Malik Beasley, who is second with 61. Oh, and he’s leading the league in three’s attempted of the bench, too…Taking 207 perimeter shots — Beasley is second with 155.

I expected Pritchard to have a strong season, especially since he could potentially slide into the sixth-man role while Kristaps Porzingis was out and Al Horford was in the starting lineup. However, I didn’t expect him to take full control of the slight promotion and prove himself to be the best sixth man in the NBA in terms of scoring and overall impact.

“He does it on both ends,” Rivers recently said when talking about Pritchard. “He actually starts it — I think everyone sees it on the offensive end — he starts it on the other end. He picks up whoever is up full-court, and he‘s basically sending a message: I‘m coming after you the whole night on either end. And if you’re not up for that challenge, he will eat you up."

Between the half-court buzzer-beaters, the three-point barrages and the way he’s put the team on his back for stretches, Pritchard has been the biggest surprise (for me) to begin the season. I’m not usually one for surprises, either — I’m incredibly impatient and like to have things planned out — but this one is welcome and exciting, and I can’t wait to see how it develops in the coming months.

Jrue Holiday’s Perimeter Struggles

A lot has been made of Jrue Holiday’s struggles — especially after the Memphis Grizzlies game, where they chose to leave him wide open. I released my first podcast in far too long yesterday, looking at this specific coverage from Memphis.

While that coverage was disrespectful, it did shine a spotlight onto Holiday’s shooting struggles this season — something that could have fluttered under the radar given Boston’s ability to grind out wins and the amount of scoring talent elsewhere on the roster.

Still, there has undoubtedly been somewhat of a fall-off.

According to Cleaning The Glass, Holiday shot 60% from the corners last season — that has dropped to 31% over the first 24 games of this campaign. Interestingly, his non-corner three have remained consistent: 36% last season and 35% this time around.

Interestingly, Holiday’s interior scoring has improved. He shot 64% at the rim last season and is at 73% right now. Although his short mid-range looks (floater area) have dropped from 47% to 31%.

There’s certainly been somewhat of a change in Holiday’s overall offensive production. The question is: How much of this is real, and how much is just me being a prisoner of the moment? After all, we’re 1/4 of the way through the season; there’s far more in front of us than behind. I’m expecting him to bounce back and level out these numbers over the course of 82 games.

Right now, I’m not too concerned. Holiday is still playing elite defense, has shown significant upside as an inverted (small screener for a bigger player) short-roll facilitator and is out-rebounding his position. However, when a team is so brazen that they literally just leave you open all night, you do have to start asking questions about where things have started to go wrong.

If we’re talking about unexpected and slightly disturbing surprises to begin the season, Holiday’s shooting struggles are right up there.

Defensive Inconsistencies

To begin the season, it was transition defense. Then, it was defensive rebounding, and now, it’s limiting penetration. Mazzulla’s usually stringent defensive system has begun to show some cracks.

Part of that is due to how little we’ve seen of a fully healthy rotation. The starting five of White, Holiday, Brown, Tatum and Porzingis have played a total of 112 possessions together—the bare minimum for any per 100 data. It’s hard for a team to be at its best on defense when the primary rotation has barely seen the court together, especially when one member of that rotation is among the best rim protectors in the NBA.

Still, this is the same team that held opponents to under 100 points in 11 of its 19 postseason games.

“They weren’t the same team that used to blow games at the end,” An NBA exec told Heavy on Sports’ Steve Bulpett. “They won tight games in the playoffs. They showed that. They proved it to people — and they proved it to themselves. And that second part is a lot more important than the first."

Despite what our eyes (or at least mine) have told us (me), the Celtics are still a top-10 defense (10th), holding teams to 110.8 points per 100 possessions. So, my thought process here is that if they are a top-10 defensive team when playing inconsistently, they’re going to be freaking scary when everything clicks, and there’s a stretch of healthy basketball with the starting unit, and everyone is back in their roles.

Nevertheless, I didn’t think the Celtics would be among the league's bottom ten defensive teams—not after what we saw last season, especially after Brad Stevens removed everyone from the main rotation.

So, I guess you could call that a surprise.

There you have it, my three surprises from the opening 24 games. Neemy’s improvements and Drew Peterson looking like a potential candidate for the 15th roster spot are my honorable mentions.

Let me know your top three surprises in the comments!