It’s always hard for a team to beat an opponent twice in one week during the NBA but the Celtics’ offense had a particularly tough time against one of the worst defenses in the league for most of Friday night. Knicks coach David Fizdale had essentially ripped up the Knicks' usual defensive strategy ahead of Friday night, electing to switch his forward-heavy lineup at all five positions on the floor. It produced plenty of mismatches over the course of the night but it was a style that the team hadn’t prepared for.
“They kind of changed up their gameplan with switching everything, making us do things that we haven't really practiced or done for a while,” Gordon Hayward explained in the aftermath of a 104-102 Celtics' victory.
The Celtics may have been surprised by such a drastic shift five games into the season but Brad Stevens used the tactic to his advantage while setting up the eventual game-winner for Jayson Tatum (24 points), the very first of his Celtic career.
The initial playcall carried a familiar look to a few past game-ending situations for Boston during the Stevens era, including one that may have been the beginning of the end of the Kyrie Irving era last year in Orlando.
That infamous sequence saw Hayward inbound the ball to Tatum in the corner with the C’s trailing by two and 2.7 seconds left. Tatum got up a turnaround and missed, which left Irving steaming at half court in the aftermath. He was one of the options on the play and clearly wanted the ball in that situation, leading to him showing up his teammates on the floor.
Really obvious that Kyrie expected the ball, and even told Hayward at the end there. Threw his hands up immediately. pic.twitter.com/4vDHuw9F0l
— Half Court Hoops (@HalfCourtHoops) January 13, 2019
Jayson Tatum buries the game-winner in tonight's @JetBlue Play of the Game! pic.twitter.com/LPlqeigpvc
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) November 2, 2019