Simone's Six: Showtime Nikola Vucevic, Jaylen Brown's surge, and a new offensive weapon in Celtics-Nets

BOSTON — On Friday night, for the first time in nearly three weeks, there was Boston Celtics basketball at TD Garden. They welcomed the Brooklyn Nets to town, and based on the two teams’ first three encounters this year, everything pointed toward a physical slugfest.

But the Celtics had other plans.

Brooklyn kept things close through the first two quarters, but in the third, they just couldn’t keep up. The Celtics exploded for one of the best offensive performances in NBA history.

But how did they pull it off?

1. Cutting, cutting, and more cutting

Nikola Vucevic played great (we’ll get to that), and so did Jaylen Brown (we’ll get to that, too), but cutting was the centerpiece of Boston’s offensive masterpiece on Friday night.

The Nets like to play physical. Every time Boston has played them this year, they’ve sent extra pressure at Brown, Derrick White, and Payton Pritchard, trying to take the Celtics’ offense out of its rhythm.

On Friday, Boston got around that challenge with off-ball cuts, especially when Brooklyn double-teamed Vucevic in the post.

“He's obviously a great passer, so it's something that you want to take advantage of,” Joe Mazzulla said post-game. “We just have to continue to get better at that.”

Sometimes, they were simple cuts. Vucevic gets the ball in the post, former Celtic Josh Minott goes over to help, and Hugo Gonzalez dashes toward the rim for an easy bucket.

Other times, it was a cut to make a pass. Here, Pritchard draws in two Nets defenders on his drive, and White sees an opportunity.

He drives behind Nicolas Claxton, who gets caught off-guard, Pritchard passes to him, and he kicks the ball out to a wide-open Vucevic in the corner.

There were even possessions with multiple cuts to really throw off Brooklyn’s defense.

Here, Gonzalez’s drive sucks in two Brooklyn defenders. Then, Pritchard cuts past Ziaire Williams, bringing the total up to three Nets defenders in the paint.

But when Gonzalez relocates to the corner, Danny Wolf has to shift over to cover that pass, so Vucevic gets an open lane to cut himself.

One drive, two cuts, one bucket.

With their constant off-ball movement, the Celtics were able to get around the Nets’ physical defense by constantly putting them in rotation.

“It put them in a lot of rotations,” said Vucevic. “It's very difficult to guard off-ball. If you're switching, it's something the offense can [do]. If you stay with your man, it's something. So, it's really hard to get that part right, especially when we're five-out, and we're able to cut like that, it opens up a lot for everybody. If they have to help on the cutter, he catches the ball, then he kicks it out, then it's full rotation for them. And with all the shooting we have, it's very difficult for them to get to everybody.”

“I thought we just did a good job reading the game,” Mazzulla said. “They're good defensively, [and] they have some different coverages. Whether they're switching, whether they're blitzing or whether they're. So I thought we just made the right reads throughout most of the entire game.”

2. Nikola Vucevic’s best game as a Celtic

Boston used Vucevic as an offensive hub on Friday night. They ran through him, and the Nets had no answer.

Once he got a matchup he liked, he went to work. Here, Vucevic ran a pick-and-roll to get Clowney switched onto him. He immediately ducked toward the rim, Baylor Scheierman found him, and he drew an and-one.

The Nets started sending two guys at Vucevic, but he played those situations beautifully. Here, the Nets send two, so Gonzalez cuts off the ball. Vucevic finds him, he kicks it to White, who swings it around to Pritchard for an open three.

A three that stemmed from Vucevic’s gravity in the post.

“I thought tonight, Vooch looked really comfortable in his offensive reads, and his offensive screening unlocked a lot of stuff for us,” Mazzulla said. “And so, we just gotta keep getting better at those. Just reading different matchups, making the right play.”

Whether it was post-ups…

…or pick-and-pop threes…

…Vucevic made the Nets pay.

As the weeks have gone on, he’s been getting more and more comfortable with his new teammates.

“It's been pretty good,” he said. “Still getting used to, obviously, the new offense, and all my teammates, and learning their tendencies and things like that. Finding my way. At times, I feel like I overthink a little bit, which then makes me kind of hesitant and takes away my aggressiveness. And I felt like tonight, I was just able to put a little more together. Just play off my teammates. When I was getting good looks, obviously, shots [were] falling, so that also helps. But just have to find the right balance of still playing my game, [being] aggressive, [and using] my instincts, but make it fit within what we want to run. 

“So, I think just the more we play together, the more I learn my teammates' tendencies, the more they learn what I like, it'll help us. But I thought tonight came together pretty well. I think the offense was running pretty smoothly, and hopefully we'll continue to build on that.”

3. Aggressive Jaylen Brown

Friday didn’t start as a typical Brown night. He was cold to begin the game, even shooting 0-for-4 on his first four free-throw attempts of the night.

But two plays at the end of the second quarter changed everything.

The first was a