While there was much excitement around the sudden Jrue Holiday trade, the Boston Celtics were already in for a slight makeover this season,
Kristaps Porziņģis was brought in to open up the Celtics offense but also to cover several offensive roles in one player. The Celtics have always been able to do most things under the sun but just one or two at a time. The whole point of having Porziņģis is to be less predictable and keep cycling through alternatives every time the defense takes away what they want to do.
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As preseason got underway Sunday, it was immediately apparent the Celtics could both simplify and expand their offense with the 7-foot-3 big aboard. The first play of each half against the Philadelphia 76ers was run for him. Much of the game seemed to be focused on seeing how all these little actions could work with him and how the defense would react. In the end, Porziņģis looked like the answer the Celtics have been searching for.
“I think just the guys getting used to playing with each other, I thought we passed up some open shots, but he gives us a different dynamic,” Joe Mazzulla said Monday. “(He) makes the game easier for all the guys, and it’s gonna continue to get better.”
In his debut, Porziņģis showed he could do everything from Robert Williams’ rim rolls to Al Horford’s pick-and-pops to Grant Williams’ spot-up 3s on the wings. While he ran into a lot of traffic trying to find his way as a screener, there were clear indications of how the Celtics are adjusting some of their actions to utilize his versatility.
What makes Porziņģis potentially transformative for this offense, however, is how he can play off the team’s stars. Whenever two star wings are paired together, the question is always why they don’t play directly off each other in two-man actions more. The simple answer usually is that defenses will completely zero in on them. The other is that one star needs to hold down the other side of the play so there can be a viable second option.
Because so many teams switch one through four now, it’s hard to create significant cross-matches having wings screen for each other. But Porziņģis changes things, as the Celtics now have a big who can force those bad switches on the defense and punish them anywhere he wants. Then either Jayson Tatum or Jaylen Brown has a big on them in space, or Porziņģis can shoot over a small or take them to his hot zone in the high post.
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A lot of teams will keep their center on Porziņģis, especially Philadelphia, which usually has Joel Embiid and Paul Reed in drop coverage on pick-and-rolls. That makes common plays like the one below so effective, where one of the Jays will have the ball and draw the defender way up above the 3-point line. That leaves all the space in the world for the other Jay to curl into the paint off a Porziņģis screen and draw three defenders into the paint.
When Robert Williams was setting those screens, the center could sit back in the lane to take away the lob, and the opponent wouldn’t have to worry as much about having a help defender step in from the backside. If it was Horford, they didn’t worry about the lob so much.
Porziņģis can punish them (assuming he hits the shot) whether he rolls or pops. It’s going to make defenses take bigger risks to figure out how they help. In the clip above, Brown’s man followed him to the other side of the floor, while Patrick Beverley declined to help off Tatum.
“Jayson draws so much attention that it opens things up for me, and that’s a perfect scenario,” Porziņģis said Monday. “So I’m looking forward to more of those two-man, three-man actions where it’s really hard to guard because we don’t even know what we’re gonna do. We’re freestyling it and playing off of each other. So it has to be pretty impossible for the other team to understand what’s gonna happen.”
Eventually, they’ll figure out the timing and spacing here so Tatum can get the ball more cleanly to Porziņģis. A bounce pass would’ve given him an easier catch to go up into the shot or pass it to Horford wide open in the corner, or Porziņģis could have popped off the screen and shot it over Beverley. A regular-season defense can probably strip Porziņģis on the catch and turn this into a fast break.
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It will take some time to make sure the Celtics understand what’s going to happen well enough to execute consistently. Porziņģis had a good game, but not everything is quite in sync yet. They still have to get the timing right on pocket passes to Porziņģis on the roll, and he still has to know where his passing options are if the defense takes his shot away.
The Sixers tried to adjust Sunday by pre-switching Porziņģis, as you can see in the clip below when Beverley tells Reed to guard Tatum at the beginning of this play so they could simply switch when Porziņģis sets the down screen. But when the Celtics had Brown run the baseline as Porziņģis went to screen, the Sixers abandoned their help position on the Porziņģis roll and opened up the lob opportunity.
Porziņģis also has to figure out his rhythm for attacking closeouts. The Sixers had a good feel for where he wanted to attack gaps after getting by the initial defender and broke up a few of his drives.
While Porziņģis can be a problem rolling through the paint or shooting when he pops, he’ll put the offense over the top if he can drive into space and make good reads. Porziņģis learned how to pass out of the post last year in Washington, but the Celtics need him to be able to pass on the move as well. He has a solid pull-up from around the free-throw line and can hit floaters over the top of the defense, but his teammates are too talented to force mediocre quality shots.
As far as preseason debuts go, this was the ideal outcome. There were nuances to the way Porziņģis moved, like how he would release from a screen at the beginning of the play and try to pick off a defender for another cutting teammate as he flowed to his spot on the floor.
While Holiday will fill a familiar role Marcus Smart held for years, Porziņģis is a unique player. Now that he has teammates around him who can carry the scoring burden, things should open up in a way he hasn’t quite seen before. He looked a little gassed as his stints went on and his drop coverage on defense needs a lot of work, but it was apparent right away why Brad Stevens took this first big swing of the summer.
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The Celtics offense looked banal and generic at times last year, even if the fate of their season can be chalked up to having the worst week imaginable at the worst possible time. But Porziņģis isn’t just reinvigorating the offense. He’s giving Mazzulla carte blanche to try out all sorts of ideas. It will likely take months to build them all out, especially as Porziņģis gets up to game speed following his plantar fasciitis from the summer. But the potential for something special is there.
(Photo of Kristaps Porziņģis and Paul Reed: Eric Canha / USA Today)
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