The Boston Celtics are BACK! They take on the Orlando Magic tonight in their first preseason game, which gives us our first chance to see what Ime Udoka has been trying to accomplish in his first week of training camp.
It’s important that no matter how things go in this game that we don’t overreact to it. Any one player can look great or terrible in one game, so while I’ll be sure to make note of that after the game, we shouldn’t accept anything that happens in this game as gospel until we see it repeated a few times.
With that said, here are a few things I’m watching for tonight:
THE DEFENSE
We’ll get our first look at Udoka’s defensive principles in tonight’s game. When asked about his defensive plan last week, Udoka said, “be disruptive overall, I think we’re working off a few different schemes but the main thing we’re talking about is using our size and athleticism, and being proactive, not reactive. So we’re doing some things to blow up certain actions, we want to make it difficult on teams. ... the main thing is communication and being aggressive, and as I mentioned, being proactive.”
What does that mean? Trapping on pick-and-rolls? Are they going to be an aggressive doubling team? How will they use their bigs?
Teams can hide certain intentions during the preseason (or at least try), but this is one thing that should be obvious right away. Whatever Udoka and the Celtics are trying to do defensively will be on display immediately as they try to get the necessary reps in to build good defensive habits.
PLAYER COMBINATIONS
There’s a good chance the main players only play about 20 minutes, so it will be interesting to see what player combinations the C’s throw out there.
“We're starting to look at lineups and look at different people we want to see different combinations together,” Udoka said Saturday. “So what you see game 1, and game 2 and 3 in preseason, will probably look different every night, and just want to see those lineups and see who stands out with different groups. Like I've said, it's not just about the starters, it's about finding the right balance off the bench and who plays well together, so we're looking at that every day.”
This could mean seeing some intriguing lineups on the floor. We could get a sense of who Udoka wants to see together, which could give us some insight into the overall rotations.
Will we see a bunch of Marcus Smart and Dennis Schröder together in an effort to figure out if they can share the floor? Will we see a lot of Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum together, or will Udoka be looking for combinations of each star with four other complementary players?
Or will we actually get a look at the presumed starting lineup of Smart, Brown, Tatum, Al Horford, and Robert Williams? If that truly becomes the starting five, then this could be the opportunity to build some continuity with that group against external competition.
UDOKA’S STYLE
What’s he like on the sidelines? Will he show emotion when someone makes a great play, or will he stand there stoically?
How does he interact with players? How is he with the officials? How will he use his timeouts?
Some of these answers won’t come until the games matter. Orlando going on a 10-0 run might lead to a timeout or it might be an early chance for the Celtics to find their own way out of a mess.
But we will get to see how Udoka reacts to the Celtics screwing something up because every team screws something up in the first preseason game. We’ll get to see how demonstrative he can be on the sidelines or if he’s more reserved.
The word on the street is that he’s the more reserved type, and he seems to be pretty level-headed when talking to the media, but even that will be tested if the Celtics play poorly. At some point this team will lay an egg and it will be interesting to see if he comes into the media scrum guns blazing or if he’ll be diplomatic about it.
BALL MOVEMENT
We’ve been hit over the head with this from day one, so let’s see if the message has gotten through.
“They know we're harping on that, we're really working on that, and we're to some extent overemphasizing that the first few days this first week or so,” Udoka said on Saturday. “(We’re) putting less actual plays so we can learn to play that way and we think that will benefit our team as well as some other guys on the team.”
If the ball isn’t popping tonight, then we’ll have some serious questions about this team. If Udoka and the Celtics are overemphasizing this and they come out and don’t do it, then we’ll question just how bought in everyone really is.
I’d rather the Celtics pass the ball too much than not enough. In a weird way, an early shot clock violation would be a good thing if it’s because everyone is trying to make that extra pass. At least then you know the message is getting through. At that point, the Celtics can recalibrate and find the right amount of passing. It’s always easier to rein the guys in than it is to pull something out of them.
Again, these are just a few things to be watching for, and they’re all pretty big-picture. Yeah, I’m also wondering if Aaron Nesmith can win some minutes or how Juancho Hernangomez will fit, but those answers aren’t really coming in full tonight. Nesmith and Hernangomez could combine to shoot 10-11 on 3-pointers and it could be rendered meaningless on Saturday if they miss all their shots.
Quite honestly, the ball going through the rim is the last thing I’m interested in right now. These early games are about how they get their shots and whether those are good looks. This is very much the “process over results” portion of the season.
The biggest focus tonight is more conceptual and trying to figure out what the Celtics will be trying to do all season. By the end of the preseason, we should have a better grasp on that.
This is something I also discussed on the new Locked On Celtics podcast. You can check that out here: