The Celtics Defense is Gonna Look So Different : Film Session
Yo yo yo, what’s up family? Before we start the video, please leave a like, subscribe, and share to any and everyone as you can just out there a little bit more. With that being said, let’s get right into the video. How y’all doing? I hope yall doing good. If you’re new here, welcome. If you’re not, make sure you take your shoes off before you come to the house. And today, I just wanted to talk about the Celtics defense. And I think we know that the Celtics lost a lot of good defenders. We lost Drew Holiday. We lost Chris Rosenz. We lost Horford. Well, supposedly we’re going to lose Horford. Not sure when that’s going to happen, but uh we also lost Luke Cornet. We lost Jason Tatum. But we’re most likely going to be losing Jason Tatum for the majority of the season. You lose five of your best defenders, shit’s going to be bad. But what I drew from this, right, especially I hit a piece on Kada. I’m just I’m just writing self this bug now. It’s just not too serious. But I wrote a piece about Kada. If he improves defensive, that’ll do us wonders. But what the Celtics had with all these players that left, they had like one of the more like interesting defensive schemes or like the most non-traditional defensive matchups you could find with an NBA team, right? So, Drew Holiday, right? I don’t have to tell you guys how versatile Drew Holiday is or I don’t have to show you numbers for you to realize how versatile Drew Holiday is, but I’ll show you anyway. But Drew Holiday is one of the most versatile defenders in NBA, right? Especially when it comes to playoff time. Drew Hard can guard Jaylen Brunson and he can guard conference. There’s not too many people in the NBA that can do that, right? And he did it and he did it well. And this is Kada’s first start here against Atlanta last year, right? And you see where everybody is right now. Drew Hardy on Trey Young. That’s traditional. We got a point guard on a point guard, right? But we got Tatum guarding the center. Tatum guarded the centers in the finals. He guarded centers the whole playoff run. He guarded Carney Towns in the Knicks series, right? Like I just need people to understand like how much the defense is going to change because three people on the court right now. You don’t have you don’t have these three guys for for this season, right? Of course, Jaylen Brown is not playing in this game cuz that’s isn’t playing in this game that I’m showing. You don’t have the luxury of an out Horer. And I’ll show you like I think Horford is the biggest loss in terms of Kada because now Kada has to play post defense, right? He has to guard the big bruising five. So the Nicole Yoges who I’ll show you guys later, the Embies, the Giannises, that’s Al Hford’s matchup, right? And Aada is guarding somebody off to the side. so he can help when those guys drive. I Woofer not being there, it just it like Kada has to get stronger. But now he has to do that from game one. Our first game is against the 76ers. And if Embiid’s healthy, Kada got to go get that, right? So I’m just I’m going to show you guys like how the Celtics all of the top big matchups from last season and what the Celtics did with Kada just to showcase how different it’s going to be. So here So here it looks like the Hawks going to run some get action. Uh Trey’s going to pass to Capella. looks like he’s going to just go get it, but it turns into a drive. We got Horford checking Jaylen Johnson. We got Jason Tatum on Clink Capella. We got uh Drew on Trey Young. And we got Kada on Zachary Richet um on the wing there. But Jayen Johnson drives and gets a foul. And of course, this type of defensive scheme was best illustrated against the Knicks in the playoffs where the Celtics would put one of their bigs on a wing, preferably Josh Hart, who they would like to shoot the ball so they can just help out in the paint against the taller defender. Um and you see the Celtics, Zachary Rich is a good shooter. He turned out uh to be a lot better uh towards the end of the season, but uh they wanted to force him to shoot the ball early on in the season and they do that here. All right, so here’s the game against Nicole Jokic. So the Celtics uh of course played the twice, but Nicole Jokic only played in one of these games and Kada in this game got 16 minutes. He didn’t guard Nicole Joic one time and every time he was on the court while Nicole Joic was on the court, however was on the court. So in a lot of these situations where it’s a Nicole Joic, it’s an Embiid, it’s a sing, right? They’re going to play Kada in double big lineups, right? They’re not going to have him as a primary defender. So, here he’s able to uh check check slashnot check Russell Westbrook. He does a nice job um helping on Nicole Yok’s drive right there. Stepping in front of Yus, forcing the pass and forcing Westbrook to shoot the ball. And like I’m not trying to scare anybody. I’m not trying to say, oh, this is going to be like it’s like it’s it’s going to be a change 100%. That’s what I’m saying. I’m saying I’m very interested to see how Joe Mazula works with less talent, right? The changes of every like Al Horford, especially for these big boogeymen centers that we fear, right? The Jokices, the MBs, guys like that, right? Al Hford is the guy for that. Now, he’s not going to stop them, but especially against he makes those guys less efficient. Kada again is guarding Russell Westbrook. He’s able to just be in hell position. So, okay, you see how Kada is able to just leave Russell Westbrook in the paint and come up to Nicole, right? Next season, Kada is going to be on Nicole Yokic. Now, I also wrote in that article about Kada that Jaylen Brown has the strength and will welcome the challenge of being able to like guard some of these guys on occasion. I just think that’ll be a lot especially for a guy in his first year as a top option. Um, I don’t expect him to do it for whole games like I hope for wood. You know what I’m saying? That is a thought. I don’t really want Jaylen Brown guarding the coices, the MBs, the Giannis’, but I know he would welcome that challenge and I know that he’s strong enough to do it. It’s just, you know, it’s it’s tricky. But next season, Kada will be the one guarding the Kyokic. So, the person on Russell Wilb is Buché. Maybe Buché maybe. Maybe Buché is a frequency long athlete, cool shot blocker, cool player, but like where’s Anthony Simons at in this I guess on Strawther, right? It’s just it’s just going to be so different. Anthony Simmons was a top 10 worst defender in NBA in Bay last season. Kada does a nice job coming up to Harry White does a nice job uh coming back into the play when Kada steps up to Nicole Yokus. He does a nice job coming back into the play and getting a hand on the Russell West shot. And then when Russell Westbrook came out the game, he was on Christian Brown and Nico just not much you can do about this. All right, here we are. Christmas against uh Joan Beat in the 76. Again, all of all of Kada’s minutes in this game were with our Horford and he was guarding Caleb Martin. didn’t get uh to defend Joel Embiid at all in this game. So, just painting the picture. All right. So, in the first three Cav games, Cavs games that I watched, he didn’t play against the Cavs double big lineup. All his minutes were with either of the bigs on. So, Jonathan Allen on, Evan Moy off, Evan Moy on, Jonathan off. So, um and then Tatum was primarily checking whoever the big man was and then he would guard like George Niang. Um he was guarding Craig Porter Jr. at some points in this game. But yeah, and you see that here as the Mia Kada is on the corner against Craig Porter Jr. got the Cavs going to their 77 action here. Uh two ball screens. Tatum of course on uh Jared Allen. You got I don’t know if they switched off here, Drew and uh Payton, but Payton ends up on Darius Garland and he gets a foul. All right, here against the Rockets last season, the Rockets and Alan Sangon. Of course, you see the Sellers are double big with Chris Aspenz and Misk on the floor. hit us guarding J Shante the wing that they would rather shoot the ball than have a Shenon be dominant in the post with and again it’s just just I’m just trying to picture I’m just trying to paint the picture of how things will change next season with the defensive schemes or like especially the matchups like we so much defensive versatility on this team you still got Derek White you still got Jaylen Brown but like and the person that I want you guys to get prepared for defensively is Josh Mina he rated super high he didn’t play a lot last season but Josh Mina or not, right? He will be one of the best defenders on this team. 2.6 steals per 100 possessions, 5.3 deflections per 100 possessions, both in the 92nd percentile for small fors, 2.1 blocks per 100 possessions, which was in the 100 percentile for small force, and a 4.2 stop percentage, which was in the 96 percentile. So Josh Mina is a true disruptor on the defense side of the ball. And here we talked about the massive versatility, just the optionality that the Celtics had. You were able to put Chris Bazingus on Auburn Senon. I don’t believe I played in this game. And that’s another guy you’ll be able to put on Son. But here we got Drew Holiday on him as Nius Kada is again checking Jason Chase goes over to help on Son. But he makes an incredible bucket. But of course in Euro Basket, Portugal doesn’t have anybody else they would put on a guy like Oprah Sen. Okay. Had to take on those matchups. And you see Son is just able to like body him and get him under the basket. He can still block some shots with his timing and his length and his athleticism, but Singon is a really good player. And here again, uh, Singon is able to use the shrimp to get K deep into the basket and draws a foul. And again, that Nick series was the epitome of like us like non-traditional matchups. Again, Drew on Coffee Towns, Tatum was on Coffee Towns um, before, you know, uh, but when Tatum went out, Jaylen Brown started to guard Jaylen Brunson a lot and Drew Holidayiday switched to Coffee Towns and then Luke Cornette was of course on Josh Hart trying to force those guys to shoot. I was just thinking about this matchup like next season in the in the regular season, right? Like Derek White is on Jaylen Brunson for sometimes. I’m guessing Derek and Jaylen would switch off on Jaylen Brunson and then Kade would have to guard Cat and like everybody else just find somebody like P. Pay that’s okay. Pritchard is a good defender. He’s just small. Pritchard is intense. He will never stop fighting on the defensive side of the ball. He is a grinder. So I I’m not worried about paint per se. I don’t want him checking Jaylen Brunson. Um, I would I would want to leave that up to Jaylen Brown or Derrick White. That would leave him on a much bigger player like Muel Bridges or OG Anobi. So, that’ll be interesting to navigate next season. Now, there were some matchups that the South liked. Of course, if it’s not like a a a center that they’re going to run their offense through, I know the Celtics had Jason Tatum checkella, but if it’s like a center that’s not really going to be bruising on the boards or going into the post a lot, they’ll have K check these guys. But what was interesting is that they wanted Kada on Jiren Jackson. Now, they’re it makes sense because they’re basically the same type of frame. They’re like 611, 7 foot guys with skinnier frames, but they’re athletic as hell. You know what I’m saying? So, this makes sense. He I think Jiren went two for three on K in this game, but I thought Ko was pretty strong in this championship medal. Jar Jackson up today. Jackson going left again. Now, this was the first game where he literally was the primary defender on like a highle center, right? I don’t mean like switched on to him and he shacked him. No, they had to put him on Zubac. Like again, Shayen Brown is strong enough and he will he will definitely welcome those matchups. He’s not going to shy away from them, but Zubac is like a big brute. Like, you know what I’m saying? So, Kade was checking him and it just it wasn’t pretty at all. I believe Zubac went three for three against Kate in this game. He was 11 for 14 in this game because I believe this was Chris Stab’s first game back. Um, no. Al Horford, you know what I’m saying? I don’t believe Luke, where’s Luke? Yeah, Luke’s in street clothes. Alor is not on the sideline, I don’t think. And you see Chris, this is his first game back. So it was just like it was Kada or Porzingis and they had to check visa Zubac and they did not do a great job this game against Giannis. Okay, as you see Kada is not the primary defender here, right? We got Jaylen Brown again who I talked about being able to take on some of these matchups next season which will help Kada a lot. But there’s no I don’t believe I hope for play in this game or maybe I just took the clips where Kada was in. But here Jaylen Brown is on on Giannis. Uh Kada is on Andre Jackson Jr. Perfect. Somebody that we want them to shoot the ball. Katie can help off, do whatever he needs to do. This was what was the preferred matchup. I Hover did play in this game and of course like Jaylen Brown was checking Yiannis earlier. Our Hover comes in the game. He’s the guy that’s going to check Yiannis here in this play at the end of the shot clock. Kada does a nice job coming over and forcing Jiann to pass the ball and forcing turnover. But there were some times that Kada was on him and it was didn’t go super. I think Yans was like three for five against Kada. But that is an impressive possession right there cuz he walled up. You know, Kada has some issues with foul trouble, right? But he does a nice job point A, point B, putting his hands up and forcing the miss. But that is the video. If you enjoyed it, please leave a like, subscribe, and share and everyone as you can just so we out there a little bit more. And I will see you guys next video. This is Nick. Peace.
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18 comments
There are methods of offensive schemes that we can utilize to tire out the bigs of our opponents. Force them to work extra on defense. Tire them out so that it effects their offense. I suggest we take it to them on offense. Take the ball to the basket. Try to get those bigs in foul trouble early. There are other things as well. Like, changing the line up to a much quicker one that forces the ops hands. On some WILD fast break ish. Boucher at Center + Tillman at PF 👀 That versatility would be hard to match at times. There's more we can do. I trust Coach Mazzula + Brad "the Brain" Stevens 😁☘
Joe’s job is it to focus on defense to overachieve
Comeback to the Celtics Al!!! Fuck the Dubs. Draymond and Jimmy? Insufferable. Stay. Sit at the end of the bench. Help coach up the kids. Play a handful of minutes per game. Sign a 1+1 and still be here when JT comes back. That gives Al a better chance to get a ring (Dubs are cooked in the west) and keeps his young and growing family in a stable supportive environment. Stay Al!
I like PP, White, JB, Minott and Queta as starters. Keeps good continuity with 4 returning players starting together with PP initiating the offense. Minott has good length and bounce and will slot in well as a small ball 4. I like Simons, Scheierman, Hauser, Boucher and Garza coming off the bench. Boucher is on the bench because I want a veteran presence on the court with the second unit and Boucher has been a bench player his whole career. It also allows Boucher to sub in quick if Queta gets in foul trouble or what have you. I also like putting the ball in Simons' hands and surrounding him with shooters in the second unit. BS, Hauser and Garza fill that role. Mix in Hugo and Walsh and Tillman et al as needed. Let Al collect a good payday and chill at the end of the bench almost in a Udonis Haslem type role. Hold down the fort while growing as a team until JT returns in the spring. Eastern conference playoffs here we come!
I think this coming season our best defense is gonna be having a humming offense. I hope we push pace (JT has always been more comfortable in the half-court), and break our own record for three pointers attempted. I want Simons to hoist 8-10+ a game. Minimum. LFG!
💚☘☘☘
A bit worried about those Bucks games, put JB on the freak.
Man the thumbnail makes me so sad, just a stark reminder of the defensive talent we’ve lost 😢
Damn I didn’t even see this upload!!!!!
I think we also got some defensive pieces that we can utilize. This season is very exciting to me. Do you think RJ Lewis is a lost cause? I feel like if you can learn to make read he can be an effective NBA player.
My boy writing for Celtics blog. think NEEMY needs to work on body control. He looked good in Portugal on defense. and the body control looked good, especially in the pic and roll. He kept his hands active not too active deterring passes. I thought he had some decent showings of pick and roll coverage in Portugal. I really think it’s a matter of just getting him starter minutes and reps. I think a lot of these guys could be serviceable players with reps. It’s got to be hard for these coaches to pick who to give reps to and when versus trying to win every game. I think this year we might have to endure some losses in order to grow as a team.
Has all the tools. Physically. It’s just a matter of him putting it together and I opinion. There’s obviously stuff he could get better at touch around the rim he misses. He’s getting the rebound most of the time anyway. I’d like to see his short role passing. I want him to almost know where he’s going with the ball before he catches it. I want him rolling out of screens with intent or if they let him shoot. I want him popping out. But defensively he needs to stay home. You can’t be overzealous for blocks and leave his man. He needs to be on the floor when Simon‘s is on the floor. Richard will put some pressure at the point of attack at least. And hopefully minnott or walsh can step up defensively at that4position.
Yo, that’s crazy right when you said it I was about to ask if you think they will try having JB cover some centers
Top 10 worst defender? Yeesh
We might have really hit on minnott the fact that he’s not a great shooter scares me with Joe
And it looks like MINNOTT can actually put on weight which gives him an advantage over. What if Walsh can bring the defensive intensity and that shot carries over Walsh might have the upper hand. MINNOTTS3 point shot reminds me of O’Shae brissett
After seeing Pritchard bother Paolo that much with his hands in the playoffs. I think we will be fine. Switching him onto a player. That’s a little bit larger than him. He’s got the core strength to bother Paolo. I think he’ll be fine against bridges or more specifically anunoby
Great analysis!
I share your concerns about the transformation of the C's defense.
Can Joe Mazzulla create defensive schemes that highlight the skills of his new team?
Can Queta step up and grasp the primary center role?
Based on Queta's EuroBasket performances, and the NBA clips that you showed, I say YES!
Let's not forget Xavier Tillman, who had injuries and family difficulties last year.
He is a quiet x-factor that nobody is talking about, or simply "writing him off."
The new Bigs: Boucher, Garza, Williams, and Minott will need to over-achieve by committee.
They all have so much to prove to get playing time and save their NBA careers…
Brad Stevens, based on his trades and draft picks, has signaled a philosophical change on both defense and offense.
No more "stagnation" on offense, more "pressure and turnovers" on defense.
This team is up for the challenge.
This will be a very exciting and surprising season.
Thanks