The biggest “issue” facing the Celtics as they hit two weeks until the season begins is the absence of Kristaps Porzings. I use the quotes there because while it is something the Celtics have to deal with, (a) it’s not a new problem, (b) they handled it very well last season, and (c) the guys they have on the roster right now are very capable of filling in while he’s out.
The two preseason games we’ve seen so far should do nothing to shake anyone’s confidence. Here, I’m going to focus exclusively on Luke Kornet just because he’ll be getting most of the starts on back-to-backs (I’m not ruling Tillman out if it’s a better matchup) and also he’s very different stylistically next to the other regular starters. He’s not a floor-spacer and he’s not switching defensively. The Celtics have to play a slightly different style of offense when he’s on the floor.
And that's fine. It’s not something they don’t do with Porzingis or Al Horford, but it’s basically all they do with Kornet. He’s either going to set picks or occupy the dunker spot along the baseline just outside of the paint.
There are two keys for Kornet in this offense: set good picks and move the ball.
Right away in the second game against Denver, Kornet is part of a quick ball reversal into a stagger screen where he short rolls and gets the ball. The Nuggets decide to send two to the ball, leaving two people to cover three in the paint. Vlatko Čančar has to step up to keep Kornet from just dunking it. Jamal Murray is occupied with Jaylen Brown heading to the corner and Čančar can't get back to Derrick White fast enough to stop the floater.
In this one play, we have a screen, a roll that collapses the defense, and passes on either end to start and finish the play. It's nothing complicated but as Joe Mazzulla says, it's about doing all the little things well.
Those all show up here:
Let's go in order...
- Screen for Tatum to get the ball. That wasn't a bad look from 3 if Tatum wanted it.
- Short roll, nice catch on the high pass (which they can do because of his height). The ball getting into the middle of the paint is always a threat, This is Luke Kornet, but here is getting triple-teamed simply because of where he is.
- Kick out to Brown, which leads to the extra pass because the defense is in rotation and White is wide open.
- After the offensive rebound, Kornet is there to reset it and get it to Tatum, then set a screen to get him open for a good look.
- Then he sets the screen for White which could have been a pull-up 3 or a kick to Tatum if White didn't flub the dribble.
Kornet was in the middle of everything on that play and Boston got two good shots and they messed up a chance at a third.
He does the same thing here:
Another simple play where Kornet makes himself available for the pass, draws attention, and then gets the ball to someone who can make a play. He was an outlet for Jrue Holiday first and then for Brown off Denver's blitz. Julian Strawther abandoned White in the corner to get in Kornet's way and Kornet quickly got the ball to the next guy he saw. We can argue that he could have scanned the floor to find White himself, but that's not Kornet's job. He got it to the first guy he saw, Holiday, and let him make the play. That probably got White even more time to shoot considering the defensive overreaction of two guys running out to him. White just missed the shot.
He doesn't even need the ball in the paint to get the defense's attention.
Again, the Nuggets send two to the ball, so they are sucked in on the weak side to account for that. Kornet smartly screens Tatum's man to give him time to shoot. If the pass was more in his shooting pocket, he might have shot it.
Tatum's drive draws Nikola Jokic's attention but Kornet being in position to get the dump off pass draws in Sam Hauser's man. Again, a large man next to the rim is a threat to score, so it gets people's attention even if the other option is Hauser in the corner.
Here's one example of Kornet in the dunker spot.
His cut to the middle did two things: it forced Jamal Murray to pay attention to him, thus moving him away from Brown enough to give him time to shoot, and it gave White an option if he wanted to pivot and shovel it back to Kornet. He could have stayed where he was to go for the offensive rebound, which I would have done since most of those shots tend to go long if they miss. With Jokic on the floor, you can stay lower an extra tick without getting beat up the floor in transition, but I get going to the open spot in front just in case. As we saw with Holiday earlier, the Celtics tend to crash to the middle of the paint from corners anyway.
Regardless, the point of this is to show Kornet, even though he's the least of Boston's threats, has to be accounted for at certain spots on the court. Being his size around the rim gets the defense's attention no matter what.
The little things matter in big ways with these lineups, and Kornet does a very good job at being in those right spots and doing the right things. It won't always go great, but it will work enough to make this work just fine in Porzingis' absence. It's also a great example to Neemias Queta, who will play a similar role when he gets in with the second unit. This is the blueprint of how to play this role well.
If an opponent thinks they can blitz the Celtics into submission because they don't have a stretch outlet on the floor, this shows them otherwise. An effective Kornet getting teammates open and moving the ball means committing two to the ball puts the rest of your defense at risk. Little, precise plays like these can pick rotations apart, and Kornet doesn't even have to score to do it.