Maybe the answer to what’s been bugging Boston is simpler than we thought.
The Celtics are now 33-15 after their blowout win over Chicago. They were 14-3 before Kristaps Porzingis returned, 19-12 since. Is it possible that the biggest issue the Celtics were facing was, simply, that it has been tough to work Porzingis back into the fold?
“I think it's just part of the learning process,” Joe Mazzulla said this week when asked about reintegrating Porzingis. “When you go through games with different lineups, and then you get a talent like that, it’s just we have to adjust to the matchups and the way teams defend us. … I think it just takes time to build the habits in those disciplines and the reads when they're out there together.”
The real answer, of course, is that a lot of things have been happening at the same time. They admittedly haven't had the same focus as last season over this stretch. At the same time, teams are coming into Boston and treating matchups like Game 7s. The clutch play has been abysmal. And the team has gone through one of their worst-ever shooting slumps.
But folded into all of that is the return of Porzingis, who has taken a while to get himself back into shape and a rhythm.
“It is different,” Derrick White said. “Obviously, adding a guy like him and the things he can do kind of just changes a little bit of everybody’s spacing and maybe how many shots you get, basically. So it’s a little bit of an adjustment but just with time and everything I think we’ll just go up as a team.”
Porzingis has now been back for 22 games over two full months, and only recently has he felt like his normal self. He’s been a net positive (+8.2) over his last six games, a stark contrast to the -4.3 he was over his prior six. The Celtics results have been slow to keep pace with his improvement, but they're getting better.
"There's been some changes, some innovations,” Jaylen Brown said. “This year's different than last year. Teams are guarding us different and the league is kind of making adjustments, so we've just got to be versatile and be willing to let the game kind of dictate what we do. Tonight was a good example. We played with pace, we got open looks, we didn't turn the ball over. We've just got to keep building on that."
The Celtics actually played pretty well against Houston but botched the finish. That game, along with the win over Dallas and this win over Chicago, could be the first true signs of something shifting with the Celtics.
“I’m pleased with the progress,” Mazzulla said after the win. “We work at it in shootarounds, we work on it in film, and the guys are working together to figure it out. So I like where their process is, their mindset, as far as how they go about just getting better. So it’s an ever-flowing thing that we just got to work at every day, and they’re getting better at it.”
Part of Porzingis getting back on his bike is getting back into the flow of where the game takes him. He got hot from 3 in this game because that's where the openings were for him. The New Orleans game on Friday might open up something different. Porzingis has gotten better at adapting to that and the Celtics are, in turn, playing off that more effectively
“It varies from game to game,” Porzingis said. “Some games, they just completely take away, for example, my 3, and then every basket I have to earn with (force). … Some games is more like they're doubling (Jayson Tatum), blitzing JT … so he’s just willing to give it up and we have to make the next play. Then I'm getting open shots and I don't have to work as hard maybe to get the points.”
Since Porzigis has been back, Boston has the league’s sixth-ranked offense, third-ranked defense, and second-best net rating. The team has done a lot of things well. At the same time, they're not much better than .500.
“The difference between winning exponentially more than that is close games,” Mazzulla said. “We’ve lost a couple of those in different ways. And so I think that could be the separating factor between a five-game win streak or losing three out of five. …
“The difference between winning and losing is very small. You got to fight to get those details. You could have a really good process over the course of a long game, or 10 games. But I think closing out games is a difference between, sometimes, eight to 10 extra wins in a season.”
The Celtics are currently on a 56-win pace, eight fewer than last season, so Mazzulla is right on the money here. Boston’s biggest problem has been in the clutch, which we saw cost them against Houston. They’d probably have a handful more wins just by being able to close better.
They didn’t need that against Chicago. And maybe with Porzingis feeling more like himself, the Celtics won’t need that as much as they have so far this season. When he’s going like he did against the Bulls, the Celtics are going to be very tough to beat.
The clutch stuff will have to be figured out at some point. If the Porzingis piece is falling into place, then maybe that's the switch that connects the circuit. If he’s back to himself, the Celtics can start chipping away all the reasons they’ve been losing and get back to looking like themselves again.