Does Brad Stevens have an answer for the Wizards?
Despite being the top seed in the East, the Celtics will need to overcome a talent gap against Wizards.
COMMENTARY
Brad Stevens has made a career out of overachieving with his teams. It started back at Butler University when he led his underdog squads to back-to-back national championship game appearances, and it has continued throughout his tenure as Celtics head coach. The 40-year-old has guided Boston from the basement of the Eastern Conference in 2014 to the top of it in 2017, outperforming regular season expectations every step of the way.
His postseason performance is still a work in progress. The seventh-seeded Celtics had no shot against the Cavaliers in 2015. An injury to Avery Bradley and bad tiebreaker luck led to the team’s demise in 2016 against the Hawks. In 2017, Stevens is still dealing with a flawed roster (despite its No. 1 seed), but with the benefit of homecourt advantage and a healthy depth chart, advancing to the Eastern Conference Finals seemed like a reasonable expectation before the postseason began.
That expectation has transformed into a challenge for Stevens as the Eastern Conference semifinals have progressed. After four games against the Washington Wizards, it is evident that the Celtics are the inferior team from a talent standpoint. The Wizards have held the lead for 70 percent of the series, largely thanks to the performance by their dominant starting five. That unit played more minutes together than any other group in the NBA this season, and their cohesiveness has worked wonders against Boston, as they collectively hold a +45 net rating in this series.
John Wall (27 PPG, 12 APG) has played Isaiah Thomas (29.5 PPG, 5.5 APG) to a relative draw through the first four games, but Boston’s talent issues have emerged against Washington’s supporting cast. All five Wizards starters are averaging over 11 points per game, giving the Celtics nowhere to hide an undersized defender like Thomas. Washington’s starting unit has also been on the floor to spark the team’s dominant scoring runs in all four games (16-0, 14-0, 22-0, 26-0) this series, the latter two ultimately proving to be the game-changing sequences in those contests.
While the Celtics still have the bench advantage over the Wizards, there has been limited value in that edge when the Washington starters are all playing over 35 minutes per game and are dominating the Celtics for the vast majority of those minutes.
The question for Stevens now, as the matchup shifts back to Boston for Game 5, is whether he can tinker with his schemes and rotations enough over the rest of the series to overcome the talent gap between the two squads. It may be his biggest challenge to date as an NBA head coach, but it is still a problem that can be solved. Here are a few of the issues Stevens and his staff will need to key in on for the remainder of the series.
1. Make the Wizards pay for pressuring Isaiah Thomas. This is a problem that Stevens also had to solve against the Chicago Bulls. Stevens’ answer then (starting Gerald Green over Amir Johnson to spread the floor) did not work in Game 3 against Washington. The Wizards’ starting five steamrolled the Celtics in that first quarter, forcing Stevens to turn back to Johnson in Game 4 to help anchor the paint. While Johnson improved Boston’s defense in stretches, the C’s offense continued to stall in stretches and eventually crumbled under the Wizards’ pressure in the third quarter during a 26-0 run that featured countless Boston turnovers.
“They’re really loading up on [Isaiah],” Stevens said in a conference call Monday. “They are sending two guys, and sometimes it looks like they are sending three guys because they all wind up in his vicinity. In the film session we watched that with the group and talked about a couple of different ways we can counteract that.”
There are a couple different options that Stevens could turn to here, including playing Isaiah off the ball more, like he did last postseason against Atlanta. Al Horford is the one wildcard that Stevens has in his back pocket, as his shooting (65 percent in series) and passing (5.3 assists per game) make him the ideal choice to be the catalyst of the Celtics offense. Look for the ball to find Horford’s hands early and often in Game 5 as he tries to break down the layers of the Wizards defense and find the open man.
2. Find a way to reduce minutes for the Wizards starters together. Barring an injury, there are a couple ways that this can be achieved by Stevens. The first is by trying to force some foul trouble, a scenario that came in handy in Game 2. Both Marcin Gortat and Markieff Morris fouled out of that overtime affair and Morris was saddled with foul trouble from the opening eight minutes of the first quarter. Stevens would be wise to prioritize attacking the Wizards bigs in the paint, since some early foul issues will limit just how aggressive each can be with their defense for the rest of the night.
The other twist Stevens could throw at Washington will be with his choice of unconventional lineups as the game continues. The head coach showed a willingness to go with a super small lineup in Game 2, with four guards seeing the floor at one point (Thomas, Bradley, Rozier, Smart). That unit didn’t see the light of day in Washington, but it’s a combination that Stevens shouldn’t be afraid to experiment with, particularly if it forces Scott Brooks to downsize his own lineup to keep pace.
3. Don’t be afraid to ride the hot hand. Consistency is one thing that Stevens has been unable to count on from his bench all year long. Outside of Marcus Smart and Kelly Olynyk, several reserves have been in and out of the rotation in the regular season while Stevens has adapted his personnel choices based on the matchups. The one bench player outside of Smart and Olynyk who has shown Stevens he deserves minutes all postseason long is Terry Rozier. The second-year guard started the postseason out of the rotation, but nine games later he holds the highest net rating (+11.0) on the roster against Washington. His athleticism, rebounding and low turnover rate have served Boston well against a dynamic Wizards backcourt, yet Rozier has played only 17 minutes per game in this series.
With Smart struggling with his shot (32% FG) and ballhandling issues (team-high 3.8 turnovers vs. WAS), it would serve Stevens well to be more flexible with his minutes, particularly as the C’s margin for error is reduced. The Wizards have remained consistent in their ability to put up 100+ points against Boston in all four games, so it’s a stretch to expect them to be slowed considerably at this stage of the series. In response to that reality, the Celtics need to key pace against Washington’s offense, and they need the right weapons on the floor to do so. Whether it’s Rozier or another member of the Celtics bench, Stevens needs to roll with the scoring options that expose a defense that has shown holes all year long.
