The Boston Celtics personal an total document of 52-14 and have already clinched a playoff berth with 16 video games remaining within the common season.
The C’s have had the posh of getting Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Kristaps Porzingis averaging greater than 20 points a recreation, which has allowed Boston to beat conditions when one of many three has a nasty evening or is out of the lineup for damage.
Head coach Joe Mazzulla has been very methodical about when the trio, Tatum and Brown particularly, have been on the court docket and after they have rested all through the sport. Nonetheless, in latest weeks, Mazzulla has steered away from a regimented substitution schedule and allowed the sport to dictate his selections.
“Clearly, if one in every of them is taking part in very well, you wish to hold that,” Mazzulla stated, per The Boston Globe’s Adam Himmelsbach. “(Towards the Suns on Thursday) we modified the sample so we might hold the matchups that we wished later within the half, later within the quarter. So it’s only a factor that, at first, is in one of the best curiosity of them. After which the following smartest thing is how can we be certain that we’re profiting from the matchups having the fitting lineup?”
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Brown is averaging 33.4 minutes and 23.1 factors per recreation in comparison with Tatum’s 35.8 minutes and 27.0 factors per recreation. In keeping with Himmelsbach, Brown has tried extra photographs per recreation thus far in March than Tatum. Mazzulla stated the shot choice is matchup-driven, not deliberate by the Celtics.
“Jaylen’s affect is available in transition together with his velocity and his physicality and his skill to create protection to offense together with his on-ball protection and strain,” Mazzulla defined. “And so plenty of these photographs are actually in transition due to his skill to run. And Tatum’s come within the half court docket the place he likes to play chess and benefit from pick-and-roll matchups the place they’re dealing with or screening.
“So the quantity (of photographs) doesn’t actually matter a lot. The method of getting them (issues). And I feel for the reason that All-Star break all through the second half of the season, they’ve each been actually preventing to get the absolute best (photographs) for them and their teammates via what the sport is giving them.”
The Celtics will take their four-game profitable streak to the Nation’s capital to face the Washington Wizards at Capital One Enviornment on Sunday. Boston leads the season sequence 2-0 heading into the St. Patrick’s Day matchup.
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