This is the Celtics’ most intriguing player combination
The lineup of Walker, Smart, Hayward, Brown, and Tatum represents one of the last unknowns about this current Celtics roster.
COMMENTARY
After watching his squad soundly defeat the Denver Nuggets Friday night, Celtics coach Brad Stevens stated his five best players are Kemba Walker, Marcus Smart, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and Gordon Hayward.
“Everything we do has got to be around complementing them and maximizing them,” Stevens said in his postgame press conference.
The accuracy of this observation is clear to anyone who follows the team. But the statement was nonetheless surprising because it represented a philosophical change. During last year’s well-documented turmoil, Stevens struck a different tone. He consistently spoke of player roles from an all-the-pieces-matter perspective, perhaps sensing a need to stroke the ego of each guy on the roster.
With a bench made of rookies and journeymen this season, Stevens is now free to admit there are five clear alpha dogs.
Unfortunately for Stevens, however, those five players haven’t always been available. Brown (illness/infection), Hayward (left fractured hand), Smart (abdomen contusion, eye infection), and Walker (neck sprain) have all missed some time, which means the “Fiercesome Fivesome” — still searching for a nickname — has been active in only five of Boston’s 24 games this season.
The absences have surprisingly yet to take a toll on the 17-7 Celtics’ results. Boasting both a top-10 rated offense and defense, Boston’s net rating (6.8) is fourth-best in the league.
So, as the team returns to full strength, how will Stevens use his rotation to complement and maximize his five best players?
He will undoubtedly stagger his stars to ensure that at least one or possibly two are on the court at all times. What will happen when all five take the court together, though? With so much scoring power at each position, this Celtics version of the “Death Lineup” has the potential to be explosive offensively. But will their lack of size ultimately make the “Fiercesome Fivesome” unsustainable? Stevens doesn’t know, but he plans to find out.
“They could play together quite a bit,” he said after practice Sunday. “That’s awfully small, but I think that we do have to consider that.”
When the “Firecesome Fivesome” finally does take the court, what can Celtics fans expect to see?
The data doesn’t offer much.
In the little action they have had together this season, the lineup of Walker, Hayward, Smart, Tatum, and Brown has been a bit of a statistical anomaly. They have a net rating of plus 10 points per 100 possessions but have shot a shocking zero percent from behind the arc. Some might say that the sample size — only five minutes over two games — might be too small to draw any useful conclusions.
Even if we kowtow to Big Analytics, there isn’t even a good proxy lineup to compare them to. In 2018-19, Smart, Brown, Tatum, and Hayward played 18 minutes together, all of which came next to either Al Horford or Daniel Theis.
As a modern basketball fan, the absence of any hard numbers is paralyzing. You expect me to construct a basketball take based on gumption alone? Do I look like I host afternoon drive on WEEI? Instead, I will take my cue from our nation’s other thought leaders and engage in some mildly informed speculation. Mmmmmm, mildly informed speculation.
1. The offense will be “Erotic City.”
The “Fiercesome Fivesome” will be un-guardable on offense. This statement is not even debatable.
Is more shooting good in the NBA? Oh, I think it is!
Just imagine the five-out shenanigans Stevens can run when the defense literally can’t send help. The picking and the popping, the driving and the kicking, and the spacing. My lord, the spacing. It feels like we are not talking enough about the spacing.
2. The defense will hold up.
Going small won’t hurt the defense. The Celtics have posted the league’s eighth-best defense by playing an incredibly fast, trap-heavy, scrambling style that relies more on playing cohesively as a team than traditional one-on-one defense. Success comes from quick decision-making, where the right read is more valuable than sheer size.
In the Celtics’ most successful lineups, the largest player on the court is often Theis. At 6-foot-8 and 240 pounds, Theis is undersized for an NBA center and doesn’t provide the most physically imposing defensive presence.
You know who else is 6-foot-8? Gordon Hayward AND Jayson Tatum. Sure they may not be as heavy, but the Celtics’ high-flying defensive style reduces the burden on an individual defender.
“No matter who you guard, you got help,” Tatum said. “Defense is a group concept. We don’t want to leave anyone on an island. No matter if it’s a big or a guard, you gotta be five on the same page.”
Tatum or Hayward wouldn’t necessarily be the only players responsible for guarding bigs. Smart, a self-proclaimed stretch-six, thrives on guarding power forwards and centers in the low post. Brown has increasingly taken on a similar responsibility, too. Their ability to guard bigger guys is what gives them a chance to play that small. Don’t believe me? Just ask Stevens.
“Marcus and Jaylen’s ability to guard bigger guys is what gives you a chance to do that stuff [play small],” he said.
So… A less deadly ‘Death Lineup?’
Essentially the Celtics would be looking to recreate the original “Death Lineup” from the pre-Kevin Durant Golden State Warriors. In their historic 73-win season, the lineup of Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Andre Iguodala, Harrison Barnes, and Draymond Green had an astronomical net rating of plus 43 points per 100 possessions.
While the Celtics obviously couldn’t match the elite shooting of Curry and Thompson, the idea is generally the same. Golden State’s Death Lineup was used sparingly throughout that season — only appearing in 39 games — but it served as a brilliant change of pace that proved to be especially effective in the playoffs.
Even after sipping some strong Green Kool-Aid, I cannot convince myself that the “Fiercesome Fivesome” has a chance of recreating the magic from the Warriors, but I will say that Smart and Green possess similarly insane levels of defensive acuity and intangibles.
It’s ultimately unclear how impactful the Celtics’ “Death Lineup” could be. The tremendous offensive potential helps them very little playing against a formidable big man. As we learned from the loss to the Sixers Thursday, someone with size felt like the only way to slow down Joel Embiid. Though the “Fiercesome Fivesome” may not be the solution, the lineup’s play will still be fascinating — one of the last unknowns about this current group. It feels almost impossible to fully evaluate this roster until the team can actually experiment with playing its five best players alongside each other.
Also, when they do finally take the court, we can hopefully figure out a better nickname.
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