The Boston Celtics’ early-season struggles continued last night, as they dropped their third straight game in a 119–113 loss to the Detroit Pistons. Boston entered the matchup ranked 29th in the league
in defensive rebounding percentage (61.5%) and left at the bottom of the standings after allowing 18 offensive boards. The lack of control on the glass once again proved costly, extending a troubling trend for a team still searching for its first win of the year.
Here’s a quarter-by-quarter look at the key possessions and defensive lapses that defined Boston’s night.
Q1
DET Orebs : 4
7 second chance points
BOS Dreb %: 69.2
The Celtics held their own on the glass for much of the opening quarter except when it came to Jalen Duren. The Pistons’ young center completely controlled the paint, finishing with 24 points and 17 rebounds, including seven on the offensive end. Through three games he’s averaging five offensive rebounds per game, which is second in the league only to Steven Adams (5.5). The first clip below shows his strength.
He gets into a pick and roll with Cade Cunningham and as Cade looks like he’s about to shoot, Derrick White steps up off Ausar Thompson to provide help. Thompson, being a non-shooter, is someone Boston looked to help off of all night, but it also aids his slashing ability. If the pass is on time and on target, one of the best athletes in the association can get a running start to the rim. This catches the attention of Neemias Queta as he starts to shift to the drive and away from Duren as Thompson stampedes the catch. Duren increases that gap by giving Queta a subtle bump allowing him to slip behind him into perfect rebounding position.
He’s able to get the tip but luckily nothing comes from it.
Next possession sees Duren as a screener again. He sets a step-up screen (screen angled towards the opposite baseline) which starts everything. As Cade uses the screen, Duncan Robinson shallow cuts (cut underneath a pick and roll) which draws Jaylen Brown and Queta to him. Now that Queta is off Duren, this forces Hugo Gonzalez to take him when he rolls. Gonzalez does a solid job getting back in front of Duren as the ball goes up, but he doesn’t actually box out and try to move him away from the rim. Queta comes back and puts hands on Duren’s back, but that doesn’t help.
He gets the board but again they can’t capitalize.
Here Duren brings the ball up due to the pressure by Gonzalez on Cade. As he gives the ball to Tobias Harris in the post, Queta fails to see ball and man as Duren jogs right passed him to the rim. Queta notices once the shot goes up and tries to body up, but Duren’s just too strong.
He retrieves the ball and scores.
Q2
DET Orebs : 5
10 second chance points
BOS Dreb %: 54.5
Ideally, the Celtics would have stopped the ball earlier, but Detroit’s push after a missed three ends up leading to a putback. Ron Holland attacks Jaylen off the dribble, and Josh Minott goes for a block attempt we know he’s capable of making. Holland misses, but Minott’s decision leaves a clear lane for Harris to swoop in and finish the play.
This play is just a wild one. Duren runs the floor and finds he has Anfernee Simons on him. He calls for the ball and as Harris throws it to him, Queta and Boucher converge. Simons slaps it away from him, but he gets it back and never stops until he gets fouled.
Here Queta is playing off of Duren as he isn’t a threat to score from the outside. As the shot goes up, he eventually finds the body of Duren, but he again gives Queta a small nudge that dislodges him. Duren does strong man things and gets an and one.
Q3
DET Orebs : 0
BOS Dreb %: 100
Now I know those numbers look flawless but unfortunately there’s context. The Celtics fouled the Pistons so much in this quarter that they didn’t get many opportunities to offensive rebound.
They shot 14/16 from the free throw line and only had 16 field goal attempts. Their next lowest for a quarter was 23. On top of that, they ended up going 10/16 from the field, so there were only 6 rebound chances the whole quarter. Credit to them for grabbing all of them though as it would’ve been a problem if they didn’t.
Q4
DET Orebs : 9
11 second chance points
BOS Dreb %: 43.8
Yea this was pretty bad.
After the game, Joe Mazzulla was asked what the team needs to do to become a better rebounding group and whether it simply comes down to effort, following several costly offensive boards surrendered to the Pistons in the fourth quarter (the possessions detailed in the tweet below). Joe sited defensive coverages vs Cade as one of the reasons.
“Once we go to our aggressive pick and roll on Cunningham that leaves us off the body and that leaves us more spread out and then they’re able to cut behind us or be behind us,” he explained. “We chose to stop the rolls and turn off Cunningham and be a little more aggressive on that.”
While the Celtics definitely started hedging on Cade pick and rolls towards the end of the third quarter, I don’t think it had much to do with majority of these rebounds in the fourth. I also am not an NBA coach, so there are probably deeper nuances that I’m missing. I will do my best to show you what I mean, though.
Here Derrick White meets former Celtic Javonte Green at the rim for the block. He gets it back (which is technically an offensive rebound), but the ball went right to him. White then contests the Isaiah Stewart lefty floater but as that comes off, Queta doesn’t box out or get up quicker than Stewart to snag the rebound. Holland eventually drives and gets fouled.
This play shows more of what Mazzulla was mentioning. If you pause the clip before it starts, you can see Queta feet above the three-point line preparing to hedge on Cade. Cade smartly goes the other way forcing Queta to be behind Stewart and help off the corner from Brown. White also steps a couple feet off of Thompson in the dunker.
If this board was grabbed by Stewart because of Queta being behind due to a potential hedge, then I would say the defense was the culprit. However, Queta was able to get back in front of Stewart and box out very well. It was White who looked back at Thompson and did not box out. I mentioned earlier that White stepped away from Thompson which did happen but, in my opinion, White gets back to Thompson in time he just doesn’t put a body on him.
He goes up with one hand allowing Thompson to go around, and it leads to a three.
Here the Pistons go to 77 action at halfcourt for Thompson and the Celtics go with softer coverage. The first screen by Harris does wonders on this play. Him being able to get a piece of White causes him to be behind, so they have to switch. Now our center is on the ball while Brown is tasked with keeping Duren off the glass.
Brown actually puts a body on him, but Duren just rises over him. I’m comfortable chalking this one up to size and thankfully it didn’t lead to points.
Pistons go to a handoff here with Duren and Harris, and the screen forces a switch. This to me is on Sam Hauser. Garza, who was guarding Duren, takes the ball which means Hauser should take Duren. This was correctly done by Gonzalez earlier in the game, drawing him a foul.
Instead, Hauser follows the ball in an attempt for a back side block but is way too far away to do that and just jumps into thin air. Him doing this leaves Duren wide open to run down the lane. White, who was tasked with Thompson, gets completely blindsided by Duren as he jumps over his back (not a foul?).
Garza then comes back into the play to contest the shot which now leaves Thompson open for the follow jam.
On this one I would like Garza to read this better. Cade gets a ghost screen from Robinson that doesn’t do much to White. White is in perfect position to force a tough shot and does not need help. Despite that, Garza comes off of Duren to try and block Cade. Garza also isn’t an athletic shot blocker type. This leaves Duren running down the paint uncontested again looking for a rebound. Hauser does a nice job getting up with Duren knocking the ball loose, but because he had to come over for Garza, that leaves his original man open to catch the ricochet.
They get an and one.
Celtics cave into the paint here to help Pritchard in the post. Queta jumps at the Cade three and Brown does a great job moving Duren away from the ball. White again doesn’t look for anyone to put a body on or box out. The ball does go directly to Thompson, but White could’ve made it harder to get with proper technique.
Thompson uses his athleticism to get the board leading to a Harris layup.
Lastly, Cade makes a couple nice moves to discard Minott, but the angle Harris gets him stuck on is key. As Cade rejects the screen, Harris just backs up into Minott pinning him on his back, giving him a free lane to the rim.
Harris easily gets the putback.
The green team certainly has their work cut out for them when it comes to the season and trying to fix the rebounding woes.
