It feels a bit silly to nitpick a team or their coach who just won an NBA title and are 3-0 to start the season. Joe Mazzulla is an excellent coach. Whether it’s instilling a championship mentality or installing creative schemes, he has earned the benefit of the doubt, especially when everything is seemingly going well.
Now that I have given the proper respect to Coach Mazzulla, I can question his decision to lean on double-big lineups through three games, specifically double-big lineups that do not include Al Horford.
When it was announced that Sam Hauser would be out with a back injury for the Washington Wizards, as well as the game against the Detroit Pistons, it seemed obvious to me that Jordan Walsh would get the Hauser minutes. Instead, we saw those minutes assigned to the stable of Celtic big men. The minutes were split between Al Horford, Xavier Tillman, Luke Kornet, and Neemias Queta. I don’t mind experimenting with different lineups in the regular season, especially now that the Celtics have secured Banner 18; you never know what you might find when you play around with different lineups and rotations. That being said, I’m not sure we need to run the experiment of Luke Kornet and Xavier Tillman in the lineup simultaneously.
In the 21 minutes this season that Tillman and Kornet shared on the court, the Celtics have a net rating of -28.3. Although this is a small sample size, I don’t understand the rationale for pairing those players together other than hoping to dominate the rebounding battle against the smaller front lines of the Wizards and Pistons. It’s great that Xavier Tillman is shooting and making three-pointers this season, but teams are not threatened by Tillman at the three-point line, which has led to some cramped spacing on offense.
Defensively is where the pairing has particularly struggled. Tillman has the ability to switch onto perimeter players in spurts, but asking him to primarily match up with wings, like Simone Fontecchio, is a big ask. Detroit was able to exploit the slower footspeed of both Tillman and Kornet on the perimeter to create opportunities at the rim.
It’s very clear who is inside Joe Mazzulla’s circle of trust: Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Jrue Holiday, Derrick White, Al Horford, Sam Hauser, Payton Pritchard, Luke Kornet, and Xavier Tillman. The only other player on the Celtics roster who has played real minutes for Mazzulla is Neemias Queta. That means four out of the top-10 players on the Celtics roster are big men — three of which are primarily traditional centers.
I understand this puts Joe Mazzulla in a bind with how we deploys his players. Admittedly, I may have drunk too much Jordan Walsh Kool-Aid during the preseason. However, if you’re not a Walsh believer I still think the Celtics would be better off utilizing one of Jordan Walsh, Drew Peterson, Baylor Scheierman, or Jaden Springer (in that order) instead of trying to shoehorn in multiple true centers into the lineup. I’m confident either Jordan Walsh or Drew Peterson can at least execute the offensive and defensive principles of the Celtic’s scheme.
It was at least worth trying in the Pistons game, instead of letting the Tillman/Kornet pairing flounder. Another option would be to simply increase Payton Pritchard’s minutes. I thought it was odd that Pritchard only played 19 minutes in the Pistons game despite remaining scorching hot, with 16 points on 4-7 shooting in the first half.
I trust Joe Mazzulla. He knows a lot more about basketball than me. Nevertheless, I don’t understand the reasoning behind not giving one of the deeper bench perimeter players a chance with Sam Hauser unavailable, in favor of a clearly awkward-fitting alternative. It’s likely Walsh, Springer, Peterson or Scheierman aren’t ready but I’d like to take the swing on the upside of one of the young guys figuring it out.
