When the curtain went up at Celtics practice on Wednesday, one thing stood out almost immediately. Well, it wasn’t a thing so much as it was a person, and a person who is 7 foot 2.
Kristaps Porzingis was walking around the court, in the middle of the assembled Celtics, in full practice gear and a long compression sleeve on his left leg to protect his strained calf. This was a good sign.
An even better sign was when Porzingis hopped into a short run against end-of-bench guys and assistant coaches.
Porzingis getting some 5 on 5 ... Very good sign pic.twitter.com/jZS4rHF5zP
— John Karalis 🇬🇷🇺🇦 (@John_Karalis) December 6, 2023
“The calf is good,” Porzingis said afterward. “Got a good session in, up and down, went through the whole practice, feeling good.”
Porzingis clearly wasn’t moving at game speed, but he was moving well in the short scrimmage. There were no signs of limping or limitation. He looked fine off the dribble and on defense. He hit a couple of shots, including a 3-pointer. Nothing seemed off about him.
“We’ll see how he responds tomorrow but he’s progressed really well,” Joe Mazzulla said. “We expect him to be ready.”
Porzingis strained his left calf against the Orlando Magic, leaving a game Boston eventually lost. The Celtics then whipped off three straight wins before losing to the Pacers in the In-Season Tournament knockout round. ESPN reported there was optimism that he’d return tomorrow if the Celtics advanced to the semifinals, but the loss pushed his potential return to Friday at home.
Porzingis is also optimistic about returning for that game against New York, but he’s not sure what the plan will be for him if he plays.
“I’m not a big fan of the minutes restriction. I always, when I’m back, I want to be back and play full minutes,” he said. “They have a plan and we’ll see what kind of feedback I get after today and go from there.”
PROTECT THE BALL …
The Celtics are averaging 14.2 turnovers per game, middle of the NBA pack, but they’ve topped that number in seven of their last eight games. They’ve averaged 16.1 over that stretch, fifth-worst in the league.
So when we try to figure out why the Celtics struggle at times, this is one of the first places to look.
“Sometimes the answer is right there, it’s just turning the ball over, which can come from a bunch of different things,” Mazzulla said. “Your turnovers can be your decision-making in transition, it could be not generating an advantage on the type of screen, and then you’re playing five-on-five the whole possession and you don’t get the read isn’t as easy.”
Prior this bad stretch, the Celtics were below 14 turnovers in nine of 12 games, and the narrative was that Boston was a team that protected the ball well.
“Like any team, there are some slip ups,” Porzingis said. “You strive for a perfect game, everybody's locked in for 48 minutes, no turnovers, and make every shot. That's what you strive for. … We’re already playing good basketball, but we believe, still, we can achieve many levels.”
The key to avoiding the turnovers is the attention to the finer details. Screen-setting at proper angles to create advantages, making the correct read to make sure a pass gets through, communicating well with one another, or playing with the right amount of physicality to claim space are all factors that play into preventing turnovers. The Celtics need to keep their minds in the game to prevent slippage in those areas.
“When you have the talent that we have, you have the record that we have, it's easy to just sit there and relax and just, you know, be on autopilot,” Mazzulla said. “I think you have to find that healthy balance of like ‘we're OK, but we have to get better and it could be something different every five games, it doesn't matter.’ What matters is that we keep the open-mindedness to like, just because we're good doesn't, we can't get better. We got to be really hard on ourselves on what the standard is and what it looks like to grow.”
… WHILE TAKING IT AWAY FROM OPPONENTS
Mazzulla was reminded that he told reporters during training camp that he wanted to force more turnovers this year.
“How’s that going?” he joked.
Not well is the answer.
They are forcing 12.2 turnovers per game, a tick more than the Detroit Pistons and almost one more than the Brooklyn Nets, the two worst teams in the league at forcing them. That's pretty amazing for the second-ranked defense in the NBA.
“It’s a tough one. It’s something that you really, really have to commit to consistently,” Mazzulla said. “It’s a matter of like, what’s the DNA of our defensive identity versus what can we realistically be really good at over a long period of time, and so it’s still something that we’re working to do.”
The middle of the league has a turnover percentage somewhere in the mid-13% range. Boston has only held opponents to that range or worse seven times this season … all while they’ve turned it over in that range or worse 12 times.
This is basically playing with fire, and something the Celtics need to even out by both limiting their own, and forcing a few more.
“Obviously you can always get better at the little things,” Mazzulla said. “Your ball pressure, your active hands, trying to get deflections, but we’ve cleaned up a lot of other areas that we haven’t been great at over the years like our offensive rebounding, our crashing and stuff, and so really deciding is it the true DNA of our team or is it more about can we get better at having some different adjustments that we can go to and be good at those?
KEEPING FOCUS
One of Boston’s weaknesses when they're at their worst is bending to the other team’s pace of play. The Celtics have trouble dictating the pace, often getting caught up in answering baskets versus generating the best looks.
“Can we play at the level where we’re keeping teams out of transition, we’re playing five-on-five in halfcourt defense and then we’re executing on the offensive end,” Mazzulla said. “I thought the third quarter (against Indiana) was where we got away from and it’s because of our lack of offensive execution by our screening and decision-making that we’ve got to clean up.”
Screening is something that looks easy but is actually very complicated. Setting the right screen, at the right angle, for the right amount of time is a critical element of executing a play. If the initial screen is off, then there's no advantage created.
“We have to be physical on our screens to make sure that they can't recover back to the guy and play five on five,” Mazzulla said. “That's just a physical screening, holding screens, forcing switches. … The execution has got to grow and that was the big point emphasis in practice today is like, how do we execute our screening versus different coverages versus different personnel to get exactly what we want.”
If they can do that the right away down the stretch, then they will start dictating the pace more often, which will force teams to answer them, versus the Celtics trying to answer what the other team is doing.