BRIGHTON -- Drop defense and missed shots. Those are the headliners from the Boston Celtics’ Game 2 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers. Easy pickings. But is that how the Celtics themselves saw it? Or was there more at play?
Here’s Joe Mazzulla’s full, unedited response when asked about the potential disconnect between how the Celtics consume a loss like Game 2 versus how fans, the media, and the outside world view it:
“I mean, I don't really know what everyone on the outside sees, nor do I want to tell them that they're right or wrong. I think, at the end of the day, we just gotta focus on the process of [the way] we play. And I think I kind of said it yesterday -- I hope it didn't come off that way -- it wasn't just a product of knocking down shots. I think I said a lot more than that. I think it started with a lot of the stuff that we can control.
“I mean, if you take a look at -- and I think the only thing I would say is, in a playoff [series], it's very easy, in a close game, to just watch the last five minutes. And I think to talk about the process, the way we go about getting better, is watching runs, and momentum opportunities, and things that can impact the end of possessions in the beginning of the game are just as important.
“And if you take a look at the end of the first quarter, we didn't close the quarter very well. We were up 26 to 13, and we end the quarter 28-25, and give up offensive rebounds and live-ball turnovers at the end. We have a chance to get the two-for-one, we don't get it. The middle of the second, there was a stretch there where we gave up a free-throw rebound. There was another run that we went on there. All those things add up to the point of -- late-game, end-of-game execution is extremely important -- but I think there's a lot of other stuff that goes into even getting to that point that you have to do a good job of controlling, especially in a playoff game.
“Losing a quarter 37-26 is tough to overcome in a playoff game against a team like that. And I think that stemmed from some missed shots, but also things that we can be better at and things that we can control on the margins. Live-ball turnovers, offensive rebounds, and things of that nature.”
Making shots would have made life easier for the Celtics. And the 76ers certainly got some easy looks against Boston’s drop defense. There is plenty of room to improve in each of those areas. But they weren’t the end-all, be-all.
In fact, Nikola Vucevic pointed out that, during Boston’s film session after its Game 2 loss, there was a chance at clarity. It’s easy -- especially in the heat of the moment -- to blame the scheme.
When, in reality, sometimes, it’s more about the players’ abilities to successfully execute said scheme.
Again, it’s a lengthy quote, but reading the unedited response is important for long-form explanations like this:
“Yeah, I think the coaching staff does a great job prepping us for the games in general and for this series, and when they're explaining the reasons why we're defending certain stuff a certain way, there's a whole reasoning behind it.
“So, as players, sometimes you feel like, if a guy gets going or something like, 'Oh, maybe there's things that we should change' or whatever. And then, when you talk to the coaches, they do a good job explaining, like, 'Hey, this is why we did this. And if we change so and so, then we have to deal with different things like that.' So, I think it's just natural. Players, when you get scored on, you feel like, 'Oh, is it me, or is it something we could do better as a team' and things like that. I think, for example, for last night, obviously, they played really well, and their shot-making was really good.
“But there were situations where it wasn't a scheme thing so much. It was mistakes that we made and executions that led to them getting some good looks that we could have done better. So, I think the communication between us and the coaches is really good, and we always discuss things openly. And today in the film session, they showed a lot of stuff that we could have done differently, that could have helped us in certain situations.
“But I think it's just natural, when a player you're guarding gets going, you're always trying to figure out, why is it? And I think it's natural for players to think, 'Oh, maybe it's schemes.' But then, when you go back and watch the film, you realize there's so much more that goes into it. And there's definitely things last night that we could have done better, that we could have controlled, that would have helped.”
So, let’s go back and take a look at what could have been different had the Celtics executed in what Mazzulla deemed the big-swing moments of Game 2, starting with the end of the first quarter.
The Celtics were up 26-13 with 3:15 to go. They were doubling up the Sixers, seemingly on pace for a repeat of Game 1. Then, it all went wrong.
After a timeout, Philadelphia’s first three of the game went down against Boston’s drop defense. The Sixers ran Spain pick-and-roll, but why is Jaylen Brown in the middle of the floor?
If Vucevic is already in drop defense, he should be responsible for Andre Drummond, who is the screener here. Brown doesn’t follow Paul George to the 3-point line, nor does he step up to help contest Tyrese Maxey.
Had Brown been up next to George, he could have helped funnel Maxey into the drop defense, rather than Boston giving up a wide-open three.
New score: 26-16.
The next Celtics possession sees Derrick White miss a deep three. Boston gets the offensive rebound, but then Payton Pritchard misses his 3-point attempt. Two decent shots, but neither fell.
Maxey then runs the floor and gets past Brown. Vucevic tries to help over and contest him at the rim (and he succeeds), but that leaves Drummond space to grab the offensive rebound.
One of two things needed to have happened here: Vucevic needed to live with Brown’s contest on Maxey and focus on the offensive board, or Jordan Walsh needed to stick Drummond with a boxout. Neither happened.
New score: 26-18.
Brown drew a foul on the next Celtics possession, but he missed both free throws.
Then, White messed up the coverage. In the clip, you can hear Mazzulla yelling “Ice, D” on the sideline. Presumably, this is him telling White to ice the screen, which means to send the ball-handler toward the sideline, preventing him from getting to the middle of the floor.
Instead, Drummond beats White to the spot, and Maxey gets into the middle of the floor -- exactly where Boston didn’t want him to be.
Pritchard helps over, and Quentin Grimes gets a wide-open catch-and-shoot three. These shots were far more costly than the pull-up triples Philadelphia got against the Celtics’ drop defense. Mazzulla said it himself.
“The two Grimes ones that we gave up on over-helps, those are more impactful than some of the [VJ] Edgecombe ones, because that's another guy that's impacting the game,” Mazzulla said. “He's a really good player, and he can impact it there. It's those ones. [Kelly] Oubre missed a bunch in Game 1 that he got in Game 2. He got a corner one off a pick-and-roll with Maxey across from our bench there, he made that one. [Justin] Edwards got one with two seconds left in the shot clock because we kind of gambled and gave up one late in the clock.
“Also, I think you get to go back and just look at the ones that come schematically and tactically, and which ones come situationally that we have to be better at in certain moments.”
More on that later.
New score: 26-21.
After that, the Celtics go to their own Spain pick-and-roll, but it doesn’t work. White doesn’t stick the ball screen, and Philadelphia’s ball pressure forces Boston to reset its offense.
Then, Drummond and Grimes double Pritchard on the wing, Maxey anticipates the pass, and he gets a steal. Two free points for Philadelphia in transition.
New score: 26-23.
Vucevic then drives a Drummond closeout, nails a floater, and gives Boston its first field goal since the 3:15 mark.
New score: 28-23.
Nick Nurse then subs Drummond out for the final possession after the Celtics fail to execute a two-for-one opportunity, giving Philadelphia the last shot of the quarter.
Mazzulla responds by going small-ball himself, subbing in Baylor Scheierman. But Boston doesn’t box out well enough.
Walsh goes flying while trying to contest Grimes’ shot at the rim. That takes him out of the play. Brown lets George get around him, and Scheierman gets pinned under the basket by Edwards. George ends up tipping the ball in.
Final first-quarter score: 28-26.
In a matter of roughly three minutes, the Sixers went on a 12-2 end-of-quarter run. What could have been Boston’s chance to step on Philadelphia’s neck and spearhead a Game 2 victory quickly turned into a near-tie ball game.
Then, as Mazzulla continued on, there was the disastrous second quarter.
Rather than going over every play in the period -- it’s easier to do so for a three-minute stretch than 12 whole minutes -- here are the highlights, as (partially) outlined by White.
“A couple of turnovers kind of let them get out, and then, a couple second chances that they had, especially early on, that we just got to do better at,” White said.
Philadelphia outscored Boston 37-26 in the second quarter of Game 2. An 11-point deficit is crushing, especially considering the Sixers were building on an already-brutal run that took place to end the first quarter.
The 76ers shot an impressive 8-of-11 from 3-point range in the period, but part of the problem was Boston messing up in controllable areas. The Celtics gave up 11 second-chance points on four 76ers offensive rebounds, and they allowed five fast break points on four turnovers (two live-ball turnovers).
Those two issues alone cost the Celtics 16 points. Even cutting that in half would have turned an 11-point second-quarter deficit into a three-point gap. That’s a massive difference.
Let’s go over some of the offensive rebounds.
First, Boston’s drop defense works. It forces Edgecombe into a tough mid-range floater instead of a pull-up three. However, after a solid contest, Neemias Queta gets bodied out of the play by Drummond, and Jayson Tatum doesn’t react quickly enough.
On the ensuing possession, George drives past Scheierman and dumps the ball off to Drummond, who scores from the dunker spot in the dying embers of the shot clock.
Edgecombe strikes again on the second one. Boston’s drop defense forces Oubre into a mid-range turnaround, but Queta can’t grab the board, and Scheierman didn’t mark Edgecombe. He saves the ball on the baseline.
The third offensive rebound of the quarter is Edgecombe a third time, and it happened right after his second board (after Oubre missed a deep three). Scheierman corrals the board, but Edgecombe sneaks up underneath him and pokes the ball away while he’s still in the air.
Edgecombe ended up turning the ball over on the next possession.
Lastly, the final offensive rebound of the quarter belonged to Dominick Barlow, and it came off a missed Oubre free throw. Tatum just didn’t box out well enough. Simple as that.
In the post-rebound scramble, Edgecombe gets open for a three. He was on the opposite end of the court, ready to get back on defense, so the entire Boston lineup completely lost track of him. All because they couldn’t grab a rebound off a free throw.
At a glance, the math may seem off. Those were all four offensive rebounds, yet the 76ers only scored five points off of them. So, what happened?
Fouls.
One incident occurred when Drummond and Vucevic were fighting for a rebound. Edgecombe missed a shot at the rim, but Vucevic fouled Drummond because the Sixers big man had better positioning. Philadelphia nailed a three on the following possession.
The other instance was more difficult to find because these types of plays aren’t neatly outlined in the box score. However, it seems to have occurred when White blocked Maxey on a fast break.
The ball went out of bounds, so the Sixers technically got a second chance to score. They hit a three shortly thereafter.
All of this isn’t to say that Boston’s drop defense worked. Objectively, it was flawed. Philadelphia shot 8-of-18 (44.4%) on pull-up 3-pointers against the Celtics in Game 2. That’s a brutal pill to swallow.
However, there’s always the inverse. And, in another lengthy, yet important quote, Mazzulla noted the inevitability of giving something else up when choosing to take something away.
“Within that game of what we can control, I think the two best examples, I mean, there are three examples [of] that. ... There's stuff that we can be better at as a staff, which is what we talked about today as well. You look at the game as a whole, you look at the end-of-the-first-quarter run, look at the middle-of-the-second-quarter run, and you look at the six to eight tendency things that we gave up on certain players.
“And then you go into, 'OK, if we can control those things, and we're in this situation, then here's what the other side of what we might do looks like,' and we got to be ready to understand that. I think it's just coming to, as a team, what winning looks like for us, and how we can control that, and what the process of that is, and we gotta do the best we can sticking to that.”
When the Celtics decided to abandon their drop defense, bringing Queta and Vucevic up a level, Maxey shredded them. He’s too quick to keep up with, even for a guy like Queta, who has substantially improved as a perimeter defender this season.
When they sent help to the driver, it opened up opportunities for Philadelphia to kick out and get catch-and-shoot threes.
And while allowing the Sixers to shoot 8-of-18 on pull-ups isn’t ideal, neither is the 11-of-21 (52.4 percent) they shot on non-pull-up threes.
The best possible solution is to have Boston’s perimeter defenders fight harder to get over screens. Or perhaps to have whoever is guarding Barlow (if he’s on the floor) be the guy helping over in the lane. But Philadelphia also positions Barlow in such a way that makes it difficult.
Simultaneously, had the Sixers not enjoyed their best 3-point shooting performance of the season (especially on pull-ups), there would be very different conversations being had heading into Game 3.
Discussions would revolve around how Boston’s drop defense forced the Sixers -- a team known for driving into the paint -- away from the basket, making them take shots they aren't necessarily comfortable with.
But that’s not the reality that currently exists. The 76ers did shoot well. The Celtics' drop defense didn’t work. And they will have to get back to the drawing board, finding different ways to make Philadelphia uncomfortable.
Yet at the same time, had they managed to execute properly in those first-half pockets Mazzulla mentioned, the end result could have been very, very different.
“It's usually a lot of little details that add up,” Vucevic said. “So, that's why, usually the next day, when you watch the film, and when you walk through stuff, when you communicate, you get a clearer picture, and you know what you did wrong, and you can just have a better understanding of what needs to be done for the next game.
“So, I think it's always important to not overreact. And they played a really good game. They made a lot of shots. And so, that's why I think we just have to take our physicality, our execution to a whole other level. And we expected them to come back and play the way they did, even after we beat them pretty badly in Game 1. We expected a reaction, which they did, and now, it's on us to do the same.”
There are plenty of things the Celtics can -- and perhaps should -- switch up in Game 3. Adjusting the defense and moving some pieces around. But those are big, schematic switches.
In reality, the biggest troubles Boston faced in Game 2 were executional. And that’s an issue in and of itself. If the Celtics simply stuck to their principles more consistently, positioned themselves better on defense, and put more of an emphasis on the defensive glass in the first half, they could be walking into Philadelphia up 2-0.
Now, it’s just a matter of whether or not they can solve those problems in Game 3.