Celtics Become Second Best Defense in NBA After Shutting Down Jazz

BOSTON — Joe Mazzulla mentioned defense consistently through the first quarter of the season. He praised it for setting a tone earlier in the schedule, then critiqued his team’s ability to get back in transition and make individual efforts following their track meet loss to the Thunder on Tuesday. Boston entered Friday tied for third in defensive rating (110.9) with former Celtics head coach Ime Udoka’s Rockets anyway, but when asked what makes the unit elite on Friday, Mazzulla stopped short of co-signing that description.

“I don’t think we’re there yet, but I think we’re working on it,” Mazzulla said pre-game. “I’d say the majority of the time, 90% of the time, our guys take pride in their individual defense, which is the number one thing, you have to have a group of guys that care about defense and understand that it’s important … our transition defense is good when we don’t turn the ball over and we execute well offensively, and then our guys do a good job of executing different schemes and different matchups. You have to have a level of effort, you have to take pride in individual defense and you have to be willing to adjust, and our guys do that.”

The Celtics responded and held the Jazz — who entered Friday winning 6-of-7 — to 40 points in the first half before going on to win 126-97. That marked the best defensive half by Boston all season, topping the team’s 42-point strange of Detroit in the second half of the Celtics’ comeback last Thursday. Boston found ways to disrupt Oklahoma City late while attempting a similar comeback two games later, including putting Jayson Tatum on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Midway through the second quarter one game later — Utah looked up at a 17% start from the field and a 6.7% start from three. The win improved the Celtics to outright No. 2 in defense.

Boston took a 10-0 lead while the Jazz began 0-for-7, with Tatum and Jaylen Brown blocking the first two attempts by Kris Dunn and Lauri Markkanen. Utah never drew much closer, falling behind by as many as 36 before halftime. Collin Sexton missed shots inside and out, John Collins failed to turn and finish a shot over Derrick White and Jordan Clarkson committed a pair of live ball turnovers coming off the bench. Keyonte George’s third-chance three worried Mazzulla enough to call a timeout ahead 25-16, but Kelly Olynyk launched his first shot off glass, setting up Jrue Holiday to beat the buzzer from three to go up 30-15.

“I don’t know if it was implemented by us,” former Celtics and current Jazz coach Will Hardy said, reflecting on Boston’s defensive system. “I think even when our staff came in, we were trying to learn the group that was here as well. I think part of your responsibility is to recognize there is history already here with the team, and you’re trying to adapt to them some. I don’t know if it was us or Brad (Stevens) and Joe has obviously done a fantastic job with their team. I think the thing that continues to show up is you have a lot of guys who take pride defensively one-on-one, and then offensively they do a pretty good job of mixing where the ball is going. They’re very disciplined with their spacing and one thing that definitely remains … you had a bunch of guys who had a high level of shooting. That had nothing to do with a system we put in place.”

Tatum began the second by cutting off Clarkson’s pass and running for a dunk the other way, building on shutting down Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and improving to the 88th percentile of isolation defenders, allowing only 0.61 points per possession. That began his onslaught of threes that buried Utah, pulling up for nine straight points on back-to-back-to-back attempts behind the line, one resulting in free throws. He dished five assists in the first, then scored 13 in the second, with his third three following a block by White on Sexton. Kristaps Porzingis gave the ball away posting-up Sexton on the following possession, sending Dunn out on the run, who White picked off chasing him down from behind. The play set up two more Tatum points on free throws set up by Brown, building on Mazzulla’s recent pace emphasis.

Defense became an emphasis for the Celtics as early as last May when numerous Celtics, including Mazzulla, admitted Boston lost its defensive identity into the postseason where the team ranked 11th out of 16 teams in defensive rating. Porzingis arrived to anchor the defense in the drop and Holiday eventually join to command the unit, deciding when they go to curveballs that Mazzulla implemented ranging from zone looks to brief presses. Their bread-and-butter remained versatile switching around the drop, with Holiday able to guard Markkanen and Collins on a night where Al Horford rested. That frees Porzingis for the type of off-ball impact Robert Williams III once disrupted offense out of. The Celtics turned the Jazz over 18 times, tying their third-highest total, with Mazzulla crediting Boston needing to track Utah off-ball, playing some zone and increasing pressure.

“(Boston’s offense) puts a lot of pressure on you,” Hardy said pre-game. “They can play with a lot of variety on the defensive end because of the matchups, then their individual defense is probably as good as anybody in the league top-to-bottom … I already know for a fact there’s going to be a run tonight where the Celtics are probably going to hit three threes in a row. They shoot a bunch of threes. They’re a very good team. Can we withstand that?”

They didn’t, as Boston regained a 31-point advantage by halftime and after three early Utah baskets in the third, continued to force Jazz mistakes, whether Sexton stepping out-of-bounds driving baseline or Brown stripping Collins in a mismatch. Brown missed his ensuing layup attempt on the run, picking up a technical foul in the other direction. More Jazz misses followed, though, in a game Mazzulla believed could’ve tracked differently if Utah made some of their quality shots early.

Instead mistakes spiraled, Holiday tipped-in Brown’s transition miss and ran ahead of Tatum after blocking Collins to scoop in his own. Boston targeted matchups to draw four free throw trips over five possessions, then Tatum sunk one more to secure 30 points in under three quarters, exiting the game alongside his fellow starters with each playing fewer than 27 minutes ahead of the second half of a back-to-back in Indiana.

“It’s a beautiful answer,” Mazzulla said, reacting to Hardy’s answer that Boston’s offense helps its defense. “So many people look at the game and they’re like, ok, this is what happened in transition. When you give up something at the rim … it could be the wrong matchup, it could be wrong body position, it could be anything. So you gotta take it 2-3 steps back for each. The game’s just connected there. So your defense starts with your offense. If you take great shots, you’re well spaced, you crash to the nail and you get guys stuck out of the corner, it’s five-on-five … and you can get matched. Your offense starts with your defense, if you get stops, protect the rim and force the right guys to shoot contested shots, you can get out and run. I think we’ve grown this year at seeing the connectivity between how the game is played.”