How Celtics intend to keep pace with Pacers: ‘They’re going to test your discipline’

BOSTON – Though the Celtics fans who left Game 1 early Tuesday night must have regretted their decision, Luke Kornet sympathized with them. Before Jaylen Brown’s final-second heroics in regulation, Boston’s hopes looked lost. Plus, as the father of two young children, Kornet said the exhaustion from one night of bad sleep can impact the next two or three days.

“It can be a tough situation,” Kornet said of the choice to leave TD Garden before the conclusion of a game. “It’s kind of like the (concept of) being able to make the reads of how much help do I give or how much do I not? You know, you’re always kind of in that position.”

Even while joking about the shortsighted fans who missed the end of Boston’s thrilling win, the dilemma of making defensive reads on the fly was on Kornet’s mind. After one game of the Eastern Conference finals, he and the rest of the Celtics sounded fully impressed by the Pacers’ ability to create confusion with their fast-paced offense. Though Boston (barely) survived Game 1 anyway, the players and coaches seem to understand they are now in a fight that will require nonstop defensive focus.

“They have a style of play,” Mazzulla said, “and it just tests your discipline, tests your communication.”

The Celtics recognized the problems of keeping up with the Pacers’ second-ranked offense before the series began, but only seemed to have a deeper appreciation for the challenges after giving up 128 points on 53.5 percent shooting in the series opener. As Kornet described it, the Pacers keep running action after action throughout a possession until, “little by little by little,” the defense begins to soften. Eventually, Kornet said, such sequences can lead to an open drive or one of the Indiana players getting to his strong hand. Derrick White said the Pacers’ constant motion puts the defense into a “little gray area” throughout a possession.

“I think that’s a big part of how they play anyways,” Kornet said, “having to make a ton of little reads and little decisions as it goes by in terms of how the position of the ball is in and having respect (of) who you’re guarding and knowing who that is because you might have just switched twice already in position. So, there was definitely a lot of myself watching where I was like overhelping in a situation where guys were fine. Just being able to communicate with guys clearly is just really important.”

Compared to the normal defensive performance against Indiana, the Celtics finished with fine numbers in Game 1. They allowed 115.3 points per 100 possessions, which was the Pacers’ 11th-best output over 14 playoff games. If Boston’s defense seemed worse, well, that’s the type of effect Indiana’s offense can have. The Pacers finished Game 1 with 38 assists. They shot 21 of 27 (77.8 percent) at the rim. According to the NBA’s data, they produced 13 wide-open field goal attempts with the closest defender at least six feet away. No team outside of Indiana has averaged more than 10 such field goal attempts during the playoffs.

Those statistics show the Celtics’ defense had some troubles. Mazzulla estimated that 70 percent of his team’s mistakes were execution issues. Before looking to try a new defensive coverage, he said he would want to fix the execution.

“And that’s the most important thing,” Mazzulla said, “and that’s what this team is going to do. They’re going to test your discipline to execute on both ends of the floor over and over again. And, so, I know the easy answer is to be like, ‘Oh, go do something different,’ but you gotta execute, and you gotta be disciplined. And I thought there were many moments of the game where we were disciplined, and then, I think, when we weren’t, they were able to take advantage of that. So, that’s the key: mental, physical discipline.”

Not every Pacers basket came off a game plan breakdown. Even after allowing 5-of-7 shooting during the fourth quarter as the closest defender, Al Horford said he believed he surrendered the types of looks he could live with: mid-range pull-up jump shots. During that stretch, the Celtics used Horford as the primary defender on Pascal Siakam. Though Mazzulla said that matchup could change over the remainder of the series, he stressed the Celtics need to be well aware of what they’re willing to give up in this series. Depending on the situation, he said that could change every possession or every game.

“The theme of this team is they generate a lot of chaos and noise, so to speak, because they want you to be scrambled as to what you’re willing to live with and take away,” Mazzulla said. “And every game is different. Every matchup is different and, so, that might change, but at the end of the day, the most important thing is making sure our team, our guys, our matchups, have a clear understanding of what is great defense regardless of the result and what is not good defense regardless of the result. And that’s where this team tests you, because of their ability to put up, you know, 130, 140, 150 (points), because of the speed that they play. It can be very difficult for most people to be like, ‘Oh, they’re, they’re not defending,’ or ‘Oh, they have to take this away or that away.’ And, so, this team tests your risk management, and it could be different every game.”

Risk management. Little gray area. The Celtics came up with some creative ways Wednesday to describe the predicaments Indiana’s offense presents. One game into the series, it was clear the Boston players and coaches considered this Pacers attack a unique one. Kornet has hope their flexibility on defense throughout the season should prepare them to hold up over the rest of the series.

“I feel like something I’m glad that we’ve done throughout the season is we put ourselves in a lot of different positions with how we’re guarding and giving ourselves a lot of optionality to make reads on the fly, and not have to have a very set thing of rules,” Kornet said. “Because I feel like, especially for this series, and for this team, that’s really important just in terms of allowing everyone to make decisions and have the confidence of knowing based on who’s in the action, who has the ball and exactly what that level of advantage or disadvantage is in determining how much you can help or not. It’s not going to be perfect but … you have to acclimate to that, as opposed to some teams who have more of a dominant single scorer and (the defense is) just kind of making reads off of that. So, it’s going to work sometimes. It’s not going to work other times. But we’re just trying to fine tune that as much as we can. It’s going to be important.”

(Photo of Pacers’ T.J. McConnell and Boston’s Jrue Holiday: Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)