Way back in summer league, the Celtics made what I thought was an interesting choice, so I wrote: “The Celtics have resisted playing zone over the past few years, even as the rest of the league has embraced it. So going to it at all in summer league makes me wonder what direction they're going with their defense this upcoming season.”
(Just for fun, if you scroll down that link, I also called that it could be a 2-1-2 zone versus a more traditional 2-3. I get so few of these moments, so I’m going to take them when I can get them)
Early in training camp, Joe Mazzulla confirmed that Boston would dabble with some zone defense as he looked for ways to work some curveballs into the team’s gameplan.
“Zone’s one of those things where, like, if you go to it, it could make you feel uncomfortable,” he said. “(Summer league was) just getting as much data on film about what would it look like, how would we teach it, would we even go to it. Kind of stuff like that. But that was the beginning of being open-minded towards the curveball.”
Well, the catcher has put two fingers down a bit more lately, with this Monday night win over the Raptors perhaps the most successful unleashing of the zone yet. Mazzulla called for it a bunch to close the third quarter against Toronto as part of a 20-4 run that held the Raptors scoreless for more than three minutes.
“It forces us to communicate, forces us to talk, to cover for each other, to give multiple efforts,” Mazzulla said after the game. “Guys have a different sense of awareness when they're in the zone … (it) forced us to play a little bit harder, and the guys did a good job executing.”
Here’s a look at some of those zone possessions, and the wrinkle that confused the Raptors.
First, here’s the set up:
Jrue Holiday is in the middle, which is interesting to me. He’s there to quarterback the whole thing. He’s the brains of this defensive operation. Okay, let’s play this through. It’s a fun ride.
First swing to the right wing you can see Jayson Tatum and Kristaps Porzingis step out. That's a lot of length, and it’s a deterrent. The swing to the baseline dunker sot gives them nothing with :16 left on the shot clock.
Now, even though this is a zone, Payton Pritchard reads that Tatum is a little lost so he just follows Immanuel Quickley across, in essence switching places with Tatum. As Quickley drives, Pritchard continues to stay in front of him and the rest of the zone adjusts. Porzingis slides up to keep Thaddeus Young covered, Luke Kornet replaces Porzingis on the right block, and Holiday has slid down to the left block to replace Kornet.
So already, you can tell this isn’t the zone you might have played in high school or college. There is no strict “you stay in this spot” stuff going on here. There are man principles going on here and a TON of communication so guys can figure out how to balance the zone back out as the possession evolves.
By the time Young drives, Boston is amazingly back in a 2-1-2 formation.
Because of that, both Kornet and Porzingis are able to challenge, with Porzingis getting the blocked shot. Quickley is forced to put up a quick shot because the shot clock didn’t reset. The Celtics fall victim to a downside to a zone, which is when you’re guarding space instead of a man, it’s easy to lose track and give up an offensive rebound.
But the Celtics are there to make getting rid of the reclaimed ball tough. When it gets kicked out to Dennis Schröder, they're back in their spots, which gets Porzingis in position to cut off his drive and force the mistake and the turnover.
This possession was really good, even with the offensive rebound. There's so much activity and so much covering for one another. This possession alone makes you understand exactly what Mazzulla means.
Here’s the wrinkle that threw Toronto off on a couple of possessions:
It starts out in a zone. Toronto is trying to use some picks to get guys free, but Holiday is in the middle and keeping the Raptors out of the paint. Now you have to listen because at the :07 mark, you can hear the call “man, man, man, man.”
Boston switches to man-to-man mid-possession. Porzingis picks up Jalen McDaniels, who drives but Tatum helps off his man to get the blocked shot. I don’t know if McDaniels thought because the Celtics switched to man he was safe, but Boston’s willingness to switch up their coverage mid-possession shows the intricacies of NBA defense.
Maybe we can call that the slider, because the zone is the curveball.
The next look is a little more of a traditional zone execution.
Same setup but now with Al Horford in the game. Toronto wants to get the ball into the middle, which does its job to draw Holiday, but Pascal Siakam’s cut to the middle is met by both Horford and Kornet, so that pass doesn’t get made. Toronto then plays some horrible offense with three guys below the zone, giving Scottie Barnes no passing option at all. You can see him calling for his teammate to come up.
Horford reads that Pritchard is following Schröder over because it looked like he was about to set a pick, so he comes up to meet Young at the elbow. When the ball comes back out to Barnes, he gets passed on to the next guy in the zone, Horford, who is in the way of the pass Barnes wants to make. With a poor angle, he throws the ball out of bounds.
Let’s get that slider again:
This time you can hear the switch at the :04 mark. Barnes drives and both Kornet and Tatum make reads where Kornet helps off his man to help stop the drive and Tatum tries to blitz from the blind side. Barnes, confused, turns and fires it into the middle of the defense.
Boston’s zone defense is far from traditional and in no way formulaic. There's a lot of man-to-man stuff going on while guys also fight to keep the proper balance. Some of it seems to be by design, but some of it also seems to be by feel. This zone defense is like a jam band riffing for a possession. They all have their roles and principles they stick to, but they also play off one another to keep things flowing.
“It’s something we've been working on that we feel like can be helpful down the road,” Tatum said after the game. “We f--- it up sometimes, but just our communication, we’re always just talking. Everybody has to be out there talking. And it's, like, fun being in that defense, because we’re still figuring it out ourselves.”
We’ll see more variations of it as the year goes on, but it seems Mazzulla has the curveball he’s been looking for. It’s already pretty effective when they're all communicating like this. It’s a great option with Pritchard on the floor because he can’t be isolated nearly as much. And the fluidity of how they run it means it’s hard to gameplan for it.
Once they get the hang of it, it can be a very effective wrinkle to throw at teams in the playoffs.
