The Celtics are in a great position to win the NBA’s “best record in the NBA,” and the Eastern Conference is already decided. Even if it’s hard to stand for pointless games, Boston’s pressure to participate makes them do so. They didn’t on their two-game road trip to Atlanta.
It all came down to their poor performance on the offensive glass on Thursday night.
“That is the location of the game,” Joe Mazzulla stated. “You can look at all that, but they got [28] second-chance points from their 17 offensive rebounds. That, there, is the game.
A few of Atlanta’s offensive boards were unlucky because lengthy rebounds fell into their laps. Others, however, required work. The Celtics let them get their teeth into the possession because they were unable to mark a man.
That’s an effort issue; to what extent may the game’s time and location be blamed for that? Will the Celtics exert maximum effort in a pointless March game? Most likely not. It’s hardly the best depiction of the club, but it’s ugly to watch and leaves fans with a sour taste in their mouths.
The Celtics rank first in defensive rebounds per game (35.7) and 11th in the league in defensive rebounding percentage (76.3%). Giving up a million offensive rebounds hasn’t been their biggest problem this year. Not by a long shot.
So if that can’t be extrapolated into a bigger talking point, then perhaps their defense on Dejounte Murray can, as he poured in 44 points.
But it took him 44 shots to get there.
He nailed the game-winner against Jrue Holiday, but it was contested, and one of the best perimeter defenders in the league was in his face.
If not for the sake of playing the best defense, then for learning and practicing for the playoffs. In a close, back-and-forth, overtime game, Boston was getting in reps for the postseason.
“We went to that on purpose,” Mazzulla said. “We have an opportunity to practice stuff that we’re going to need to get to, and we haven’t done a lot of 15, one-through-five switching with KP on the floor. So, I thought that was a good opportunity for us to just work on that and get reps in that and get it on film.”
So, would the Celtics get burned that way in the playoffs? Or would they go to something else? Or is this the practice that will help Porzingis perform better when challenging guards off the dribble?
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