CHARLOTTE -- One glance at the box score tells you all you need to know about the Boston Celtics' win over the Charlotte Hornets on Friday night. From the jump, it was clear that one team far outclassed the other.
As soon as Jayson Tatum opened the scoring with a pull-up three coming off a Neemias Queta screen, the Hornets had to know they were in for a long night. Boston had the jump on them.
But it wasn't just Tatum. The Celtics read the Hornets like a book. Even before the game, Joe Mazzulla mentioned the Hornets' affinity for cross-matching. Switching defensive matchups. Letting differnt guys guard different players.
"Charlotte will cross-match and change matchups, so have a tendency to just go out and just run the play as opposed to seeing the information in front of you and taking a look at where the cross-match is and where the advantage is," Mazzulla said. "It'll be different than what it was two possessions ago. So, just finding little situations where they have to build an awareness and they're going to execute.
Mazzulla was right. But it wasn't just an observation. It was a premonition. Because once the game got rolling, Boston did more than just recognize and accept cross-matches. They hunted them.
Clinical. The Celtics were clinical. Every move they made on offense was purposeful. There was no wasted motion. They forced Charlotte into giving them exactly what they wanted.
"Yeah, you're just trying to find certain ways to get mismatches," Payton Pritchard said. "Shorter defenders on JT and them, and then, obviously, that leads to them doubling, and stuff like that, which helps our offense. So, just trying to find the flow of that and get better at it."
Here's the first example. Charlotte is okay with switching everybody butthe big. They don't want the center guarding Tatum. So, the Celtics go to work.
Sam Hauser tries to set a screen for Pritchard in the backcourt. He wants to take Royce O'Neale out of the play and leave rookie Christian Anderson on Pritchard. O'Neale fights around it. But Hauser doesn't give up.
As soon as Pritchard crosses half-court, Hauser screens again. Anderson immediately steps up to switch, and Hauser gets out, taking O'Neale with him. Step one done.
Then, Tatum comes into the play. He screens for Pritchard, Sion James switches, and Tatum goes to the top of the key, now with 6-foot-1 Anderson on him.
Mitchell Robinson, guarded by rookie (center!) Hannes Steinbach, runs up and screens for Tatum before Anderson can get his bearings. That immediately puts him behind the play. And since the Hornets don't want the big to switch onto Tatum (or Anderson to switch onto the 7-foot Robinson), he gets an open lane to drive.
Anderson actually does a pretty good job of getting back into the play. He ends up in front of Tatum. But he's just too small and a tad too late (still) to slow down the Celtics superstar.
But wait, why don't the Hornets want to switch their big onto Tatum? Why not just try to switch everything and send help when needed? Well, this is part of the reason why.
Luka Garza, guarded by Steinbach, runs up to screen for Tatum, guarded by O'Neale. Again, O'Neale does a good job of fighting around. But he can only do so much. Garza eventually forces the switch Charlotte doesn't want to make.
So, the Hornets double. James runs over to put two on the ball, and Derrick White runs to the middle of the floor to give Tatum an out. He makes the pass, the Hornets scramble back, but somehow, they leave Tatum.
Steinbach ends up on Tatum again, but he can't keep up. Tatum goes to drive, so Steinbach follows, but a quick step-back was all the separation he needed.
It's all about differentiating the offensive attack. Teams are eventually going to figure things out if you keep running the same plays over and over again.
"Just finding different ways to be able to attack it. It's never one way," Mazzulla said. "Each possession is going to be a little bit different. They did it some, but I think the guys did a great job of handling that. But it's not one way to do it. The key is think quick. Key is execute. Key is get to your space [and] make the right read. Just got to keep doing that over and over again, and I thought the guys did that tonight."
"Making sure we're not stagnant, right?" Tatum said. "That we're not telling the whole gym we're looking for one single matchup, right? Still understanding that there might be a matchup that we want to attack, but how can we get to it on the second or third action without just doing it right away."
Eventually, the other team is going to adjust. So, how can you find a way to bend their will? How can you force them to keep giving you what you know they don't want to give up?
"We watch a lot of film, go through reads, and even when defenses make adjustments, [they] can't take away everything," Tatum said. "There's something that they're willing to give up, or there's always an answer. So, just how quickly can we figure that out?"
Diversifying the offense. Instead of an on-ball look, the Celtics get Tatum a perferable matchup off the ball here. And once again, there are plenty of layers to the play.
First, Jordan Walsh sets a screen for Paul George to run up to the wing and get the ball from White. Walsh immediately relocates to the corner, and it's important to note that Charlotte has Ryan Kalkbrenner -- the center -- guarding him.
You can see Tatum pointing at the opposite side of the court. He wants the ball to get to Walsh. So, it does. Then, he immediately sets a back screen for White to cut to the rim.
Since Kalkbrenner had to go out to the corner to guard Walsh, who just got the ball, that left White with an open lane to cut off the screen. So, Tidjane Salaun, who was guarding Tatum, had to switch onto White to prevent a pass. That left Coby White -- a 6-foot-5 guard -- on Tatum.
Walsh tries to get the ball to Tatum, but the pass doesn't connect. The Celtics' offense eventually scrambled, recovered, and got the ball to Walsh for an open corner three. But that's not the point of the play.
Step by step, the Celtics found a way to force the Hornets into giving them the matchup they wanted. And throughout the course of the night, they managed to do it in different ways.
Versaility is about way more than a shot profile. It's about the process of getting into an offense. Boston's cross-match hunting was textbook against the Hornets, and they capitalized on the mismatches by getting downhill quickly or finding a pocket to shoot. They kept the offense flowing. They kept the offense fast.
The win in Charlotte brought the Celtics to 7-2 on the season. They have the sixth-best offensive rating (116.7) in the NBA. And they may not even be scratching the surface.
"Just make reads," Pritchard said. "So, that's how I think our offense is. We don't really have rules. We just try to make reads, and decisions, and play fast, and we're still new at this. What is this, game nine? Yeah, so we're still very, like, trying things and getting better. So, I don't think we've hit peak form at all. I think we've actually, like we're, record-wise, solid, but we haven't - We're just hitting the surface."