SAN FRANCISCO — Minutes before tip-off Thursday night, Kristaps Porziņģis lined up a 3-pointer from a few feet inside the halfcourt line. Not far away from him stood new teammate (and old teammate) Al Horford, likewise preparing his body for a matchup against his former team.
If this Boston Celtics season had spiraled into disappointment, as many expected over the summer, the sight of the two big men together on the Golden State Warriors might have hurt. Instead, while controlling the Warriors 121-110, the Celtics didn’t need to worry about any scars left over from an offseason overhaul.
“Everyone looked at it as loss, but I think it’s just different,” said Joe Mazzulla. “When you lose something, you usually gain something in return. In a way, that’s just kind of how it works in this league. And so you don’t focus on necessarily the loss. You just focus on, ‘It’s just different.’”
Mazzulla also spoke glowingly about Horford and Porziņģis, who became teammates again earlier this month when the Warriors traded for the latter big man. The veterans were pivotal to the Celtics’ 2024 championship. They helped lift the franchise. Still, Mazzulla’s comment about the upside of change was telling. The Celtics haven’t succeeded this season because they said goodbye to their entire frontcourt rotation of Porziņģis, Horford and Luke Kornet, but they have discovered the opportunity in those departures.
Neemias Queta and Luka Garza were ready for additional playing time, but the Celtics didn’t just throw them out onto the court and ask them to play like the guys they were replacing. That wouldn’t have worked. Instead, the team, also missing injured star Jayson Tatum as well as the traded Jrue Holiday, transformed to highlight its new personnel.
Jaylen Brown, Derrick White and Payton Pritchard were all capable of jumping up a spot in the hierarchy. Their teammates — and the way Mazzulla uses them — have helped define the team’s new vision. Never a great offensive rebounding team during recent seasons, the Celtics have turned that into one of their strengths. Queta ranks 10th in offensive rebound percentage. Garza would rank third if he had played enough minutes to qualify. Their relentlessness on the glass has helped the Celtics win the possession game on a consistent basis. That has been crucial for their offense, which ranks second in efficiency despite ranking 15th in true shooting percentage.
When Porziņģis, Horford and Kornet were in town, the Celtics relied heavily on double-big lineups. They have largely gone away from that look this season. Though they have more options to go big now after acquiring Nikola Vučević, they have typically used less size in the frontcourt, with one of their energetic wings often taking the minutes at power forward. The Celtics have built a defensive system around their new strengths. Though they don’t have as many prototypical shot blockers, they have protected the rim as a team while ranking third in opposing points in the paint allowed per 100 possessions. They swarm.
Before picking up Vučević, the Celtics almost never posted up. They can feed Vučević on the block now, but he is not likely to receive as many chances down there as Porziņģis did with Boston.
The Celtics are much different now. Throughout a 36-19 start to the season, they have figured out solutions that work for the current group. They are in the process of learning new ones while incorporating Vučević. While doing that, they will be able to lean on the foundation they have already built.
“Because of how those guys (veterans like Horford and Porziņģis) carry themselves, we have a standard in the way things are, and the younger guys here now have just kind of picked up on that,” Mazzulla said. “I had full faith in our younger guys picking up on the mindset and the standard and the attention to detail and the competitiveness and all the things that go in (to winning) because they worked hard to get to that. So it just looks different, we have different players, but the mindset remains the same, the standard remains the same, the competitive (nature) remains the same. And guys have done a great job. Just, we have to keep that up.”
Porziņģis spent two years in Boston. (Dale Zanine / USA TODAY Sports)
Before allowing a fourth-quarter comeback that produced a closer final score, Boston ripped the Warriors apart on Thursday while building a 34-point lead. The Celtics scored 74 first-half points. Payton Pritchard (26 points, seven assists, six rebounds) and Sam Hauser (16 points) combined to sink 10 3-pointers as their team shot 51.6 percent from the field, including 42.5 percent from behind the arc. Brown (23 points, 15 rebounds, 13 assists) recorded a triple-double before the end of the third quarter.
“He just had a clear understanding of what the advantage was every time down the floor,” said Mazzulla. “We’re at our best when he defends at a high level and takes accountability in his rebounding. I thought his rebounding was great tonight defensively. Offensively, this team challenges your ability to make rim reads, it challenges your ability to play 2-on-1. And tonight he just did a great job of finding it whether it was for himself or for others. I thought the pace and the poise with which he played at was high level. You could see it in real time the game just completely slowed down for him and he was able to recognize where the 2-on-1 was every single time.”
Others might have expected the Celtics to take a giant step backwards this season. Horford and Porziņģis, who now sit next to each other in the Golden State locker room, never bought into all of the chatter that all of the offseason changes might sink Boston.
“Some of the most pessimistic (opinions) were like this is a lottery team,” said Porziņģis, who scored 12 points off the bench in his Warriors debut. “But I never thought that. In our years, whenever somebody was out — the culture that they already have there, it’s not going to just disappear.”
“The biggest thing is everybody is bought into what Joe is telling them and he’s just running a really good program over there,” added Horford. “Him and all those assistant coaches, they’re really doing a good job getting the guys ready and getting them to commit and play at a high level. That’s why I feel like it’s so smooth. But I think if you look at last year there’s a lot of times that KP was out, Jrue was out, different guys were out, and we were still getting results. So that’s why it’s not surprising, their success.”