After two days off, the Celtics strolled on to the San Antonio River Walk for a 121-111 win over the Spurs. Payton Pritchard and Al Horford sat this one out, Jayson Tatum returned for a near triple double with 29 points, and Luke Kornet finished with a 15-16 double-double.
Let’s remember the Alamo.
Porzingis roll vs. pop
As CelticsBlog’s Azad Rosay has noted, Porzingis’ usage is way up over the last month. His role has changed and he’s had the ball in his hands more as a play initiator rather than a play finisher as he’s come back from injury while other starters have missed games in March.
However, he’s still a nightmare in basketball’s most basic play: the pick-and-roll/pop. It’s the quickest way to create a mismatch or disadvantage and exploit it immediately.
To open the game, Porzingis and Jrue Holiday run a simple off-ball action that frees him up for an open 3.
Later, it’s Jayson Tatum running Stockton-to-Malone to Porzingis on the roll. Sometimes, it’s just that easy.
JB’s knees
After hitting the deck early in the first quarter, Jaylen Brown winced and rubbed his left knee. He was slow to get up and limped it off, but stayed in the game. He still looks a little gimpy with that bone bruise, but he finished the final frame strong with six points and two assists in the fourth.
Brown is at his best when he’s aggressive and attacking the rim, but every time he takes a spill like that, I’m going to hold my breath to see if he gets up.
He’ll need to play in six of the final eight games to be eligible for awards season. The Celtics will basically play every other night for the rest of the regular season outside of a back-to-back in New York and Orlando to close out their road schedule. If the team can afford to, you can bet he’ll sit two while under his current minutes restriction.
He finished with 14 points (6-of-9 from the field) and four assists in just under 30 minutes. Notably, he did not finish the game with Mazzulla electing to close out with Luke Kornet and the double big lineup.
Holiday corner threes
Last season, Holiday hit 55-of-91 of his corner balls from behind the arc. However, before hitting the floor at Frost Bank Center, he had hit just 26-of-97 after being King of the Corner during the championship run.
He’s scuffling this season, shooting just 34.4% from 3. That’s a five-year low for the 15-year vet. Last night, he hit 5-of-7 including 2-of-3 from the corner. After missing 9 of 12 in February and March with a shoulder impingement and mallet finger, Holiday has looked rejuvenated with a handful of scoring outbursts. Against the young Spurs, he had 21-6-6 as he tunes up for the postseason.
Skywalker vibes
With Payton Pritchard out with a hip injury, Baylor Scheierman continued to get some run with the big club. In just under nineteen minutes, he made two of his four three-point attempts and was generally a net neutral on the floor.
For Scheierman to continue to get minutes to close out his rookie season, he’ll have to keep on defending and cut out mistakes, hit shots (18-of-38 from behind the arc in the last nine games), and play the right way. That means making quick decisions in the natural flow of the game.
This seems simple, but Scheierman has quickly shown a knack of working out of the corner, reading the defense, and taking the quick shot or driving the ball in order to compromise the defense again.
He’s susceptible to hunting the highlight play, because, well, he’s recorded a few already. Completing “that’s a steal by Bird” and a Rondo is quickly filling out his Pistol Pete resume. We’ll forgive the rookie for a turnover here and there if he keeps coming up with these callbacks.
Double bigs
To start the third quarter, the Celtics flexed a double big lineup with Kristaps Porzingis paired with Luke Kornet and they rattled off an 11-5 run to push the lead to 15. Had Al Horford been in the mix, we might have seen even more than this against a Spurs team without any considerable size in the frontcourt.
Both bigs love to pass, so as soon as either gets a mismatch or draws a double, they’re both great at cutting, particularly Kornet, and finishing at the rim.
Porzingis got into foul trouble and again with no Horford, we didn’t see the pairing again until 3:43 left in the game. Curiously, Mazzulla closed with Kornet rather than Brown, but considering Brown’s knee (see above) and a more defensive, half-court look, it made sense.
The barrage
Like Boston (48.3 3FGAs per game), San Antonio tries to get up a bunch of three-pointers (39.6), too. However, like with everything Joe, it’s all about the margins. The Celtics allow 36.8 attempted threes to opposing teams (an 11.5 margin) whereas the Spurs give up just 0.9 fewer than they take. If you’re going to compete against Mazzulla Ball, you have to really accentuate your advantages.
On Saturday night, the Celtics did a better job taking and limiting three-pointers. They didn’t exactly shoot the ball well (17-of-51 for 33%), but holding the Spurs to 14-of-40 and winning that battle by nine points ended up being the difference.
Kornet offensive rebounds
In his postgame interview, Kornet, who finished a team-high +21, credited his high school coach for his career-high 7 offensive rebounds, saying, “I took geometry in high school. Shout out to Coach Scofield, rest in peace. You know, angles, trig, alternate and interior angles theorem, that kind of stuff.”
Never change, Luke.
Magic number
With the win, the Celtics clinched at least the #2 seed in the East and the Atlantic Division. It marks the fourth season in a row that the Celtics have won their division and finished first and second in the conference.
They’re 55-19 and more impressively, have a 31-7 record on the road and still have a shot at tying the 2016 Golden State Warriors for best road record if they can win on Monday in Memphis and both games of a back-to-back against the Knicks and Magic later in April.
With eight games left in the regular season and a four-game deficit, there’s a small chance that Boston could catch Cleveland for the top seed. The Cavaliers still have two games left apiece against the Knicks and Pacers and they’re .500 over their last ten games, but the Celtics would still have to either run the table or drop just a game or two to close out the 82.
Chris Paul Revere?
With just over eight minutes to go in the fourth quarter, the San Antonio crowd got a chance to witness a vintage performance from their soon-to-be 40-year-old point guard. Chris Paul rattled off ten points in three minutes with his signature mid-range game to remind everybody of his Hall of Fame game.
He’ll be a free agent this summer after a one-year sabbatical of mentoring Victor Wembanyama. So far, Brad Stevens and the front office have shied away from picking up a ring-chasing vet in free agency, but considering their salary cap restraints and contender status, you have to wonder if there might not be a P.J. Brown or Rasheed Wallace-type signing in the coming offseasons and/or trade deadline.
There was a quick little moment between Paul and Mazzulla after the buzzer. I’d love to know what it was about, but Mazzulla’s smile quickly dissipating as he turned away reminded me of that now infamous exchange between CP3 and Steve Kerr.
Takeaways first-timers club
This is my thirteenth season at CelticsBlog, but just my first time doing the takeaways. This space was so wonderfully cultivated by the great Keith Smith and then the baton was passed to Adam Taylor and this season, Azad Rosay has taken the reigns to resounding success. I just want to shout out those writers because this column has become a staple at CB and that doesn’t happen without their careful stewardship and of course, our readers. Thanks, everybody.
