The Celtics defense has been struggling a bit in the early going. Their defensive rating (points allowed per 100 possessions) is 24th overall in the NBA. Their offense got them through the first few games of the season, but when they went cold against Chicago, their defensive issues were on full display.
Some of it can be chalked up to it being their third game in four nights. When you see Al Horford falling asleep defensively, then you know something weird is happening (and he didn’t play against Orlando).
But a lot of it falls into two areas: A lack of discipline, and trouble with the scheme. The good news is that so much of this is correctable. And they're going to need to dial in that focus for the next couple of months because Robert Williams isn’t around to clean up their mistakes.
LACK OF DISCIPLINE
One of the first stages of a defensive breakdown is a loss of discipline. The Bulls scored a couple of baskets that were mostly unremarkable shots.
Ayo Dosunmu, though, had been struggling to start the season. Giving any player who is struggling easy baskets can help them turn it around.
This one felt important.
First of all, Grant Williams needs to be tighter on the switch. He’s too far back. If he was up a little more, he might not have bit so hard on the pump fake.
What was needed a hard contest, not jumping. Dosunmu isn’t a lights-out shooter, so give him a challenge strong enough to make him think about it while leaving yourself room to maneuver. Biting on the fake is a loss of discipline.
Then Marcus Smart behind him does a good job of recognizing the play but then he swipes at the ball rather than standing his ground and trying to take a charge. It was a gamble that he lost, especially because swiping took him out of the play and gave Dosunmu a wide open layup.
Later, Javonte Green got a wide open 3-pointer after a few different easily-correctable mistakes.
First, a wild overreaction by Sam Hauser. He has to keep his balance there and meet Goran Dragic as he catches it. Instead, he gives up the drive and Dragic finds Zach LaVine in the corner and Williams bites hard on the fake again, which is uncharacteristically bad defense. Hauser steps up to try to challenge LaVine and Jaylen Brown just sort of stops instead of recognizing Green has relocated from the baseline to the 3-point line.
So two guys moved too fast and one guy wasn’t moving fast enough.
This one ends up as a foul on Noah Vonleh, but it’s Malcolm Brogdon’s fault.
In the game, you can hear Vonleh calling for the switch and screaming to Brogdon to get out. You can actually hear him doing it right at the beginning of the clip, but it takes a couple of seconds for Brogdon to react, leaving him scrambling out to Derrick Jones, Jr. in the corner. That sets him up for an easy blow-by and while Vonleh is really good at going straight up, Brogdon being out of position leaves no one to box out, and Jones gets fouled by Vonleh.
Those are just a few examples of how a good defense can suddenly go bad simply by just losing focus and discipline.
“Defense is something that you have to commit to every day, every game,” Joe Mazzulla said after the team’s Wednesday practice. “When you have moments of laxing, you kind of have inconsistency. So it's all about the fundamentals. We all know what we need to do. And I think our guys did a great job today kind of focusing on that.”
SCHEMATIC ISSUES?
The Celtics might want to consider some tweaks to their pick-and-roll coverages. They did not play the pick-and-roll well on Monday night, but it’s also been a problem all year.
Dragic turns the corner on that pick and sees an opening. He delivers a perfect pocket pass to Jones, but the Celtic got no weak side help at all on this play. Brogdon should slide over a step to dig at the ball and at least disrupt the play.
It’s not hard to dig down once, make Jones aware of your presence, and then slide back to your man to prevent the 3-pointer. Either Brogdon didn’t do it on his own, or he’s been told not to. Either way, he should.
If the Celtics are in a drop coverage, they have do one of two things.
1. Bring the big up higher so the ball handler feels some resistance. That would require the players behind the big to be sharp on their rotations to help him out because that leaves the roll man to be dealt with by someone else.
2. Chase over the top of screens aggressively. If the big is dropping into the paint, he’s essentially baiting the ball handler to get closer to the rim. The man who got screened has to be hot on his tail (but in control so he doesn’t foul) so he can provide the rear-view contest.
Brown was not hot on LaVine’s tail. In fact, the angle he took made it seem like he was initially thinking of going under the screen but then decided to go over the top of it. With Horford dropping, that became a warm up-quality look.
I’m not a fan of dropping so low on pick-and-roll, but if that's what a team is trying to do, then they need to do other things to make up for that. Boston has struggled with that.
“It starts with the fundamentals,” Mazzulla said. “It's stuff that we've talked about, body position, pickup points, communication and so it's just hammering home those fundamentals and sticking to them all the time and realizing how important they are.”