Celtics Unleash Unique Zone Again in Third Quarter Win Over Raptors

The Raptors no longer represent one of the more threatening matchups for the Celtics.

The Bubble now rests four years in the past, Kyle Lowry and Fred VanVleet left over the last two summers and OG Anunoby now plays for the Knicks. With Pascal Siakam potentially following them out the door as the final 2019 contributor left in Toronto, the Celtics met their final frustrating challenge from these Raptors.

“They’re a very physical defensive team,” Joe Mazzulla said after. “They take up space, they force you to fight for space, they’re active in their hands. With their switching, they really slow the game down and make you work for baskets.”

Toronto, trialing by 11 points with 49 seconds left in the first half, closed on a 7-2 run that extended into a 23-5 charge into the third quarter that flipped the Celtics into a seven-point deficit. Immanuel Quickley and RJ Barrett’s transition prowess that used to bother Boston from the Knicks built the Raptors a 30-15 fast break advantage while the Celtics fell to 2-for-9 from three and couldn’t consistently generate threes against Toronto’s random defense that sometimes refused to switch. So the Celtics pulled out a wrinkle of their own — a 2-1-2 zone.

The Raptors had shot 6-for-12 between halves on the way to their 66-64 lead by forcing a turnover on Al Horford. Barrett scored in transition and beat Kristaps Porzingis for a three-point finish on the following possession. Jayson Tatum chased down Scottie Barnes and stole the ball back from him after a Derrick White turnover to stop the run, setting up a Jrue Holiday three, before he dunked twice through Toronto’s front line to tie the game at 73. Slowing the game down offensively and executing in the half court led to four flat jump shots by Toronto in the other direction, and the zone soon went to work by evening the turnover game.

The first look featured Porzingis and Luke Kornet on the back line, Holiday in the middle, with Payton Pritchard and Tatum at the top. They generated three stops on one possession, struggling to rebound the ball, before Dennis Schröder lost the ball driving for a third-chance try with bodies getting up off the ground from a loose ball scramble.

Kornet and Porzingis bit on the following transition set, allowing Barnes to find Siakam underneath, but when Boston set the zone, it allowed Porzingis and Tatum to guard Jalen McDaniels‘ mid-range game in tandem. Toronto needed to pause, unsure where the Celtics would position their defenders in what became more of a matchup-based zone. Horford in particular changed positions in it and showing against Barnes forced him to throw the ball out-of-bounds.

The Celtics built a 15-4 run in the other direction that eventually mounted to 30-9 between the third and fourth quarters that placed Boston back into an 11-point advantage. Barnes saw another pass into the crowded paint fall into Horford’s hands. McDaniels drew free throws on a Thad Young pass that nearly went the other way. Kornet and Horford effectively crowded Schröder enough to force a late bailout pass to Chris Boucher for a missed three over the Kornet Contest. A 4-for-32 three point game for the Raptors undoubtedly aided the Celtics’ ability to stay in the zone for long stretches in the third quarter, but the look also worked against Indiana.

“Inside the paint, around the rim, I thought we were getting to the right spots. They did not make those,” Darko Rajakovic said. “Them playing zone got us a little out of sync, then we found the offense against it to get wide open shots and we just did not make those shots.”

The Celtics combined man and zone concepts again after utilizing it successfully in the first Indiana game. Holiday, who’s deciding when Boston breaks into some of its more unique defensive looks this year, often plays the middle and can roam while Mazzulla will call the team back into man late in the shot clock. The looks helped hold Indiana to 32 points in the second and third quarters, before 20 in the fourth in a runaway win.

Boston played the Pacers again two days later, more comparable to a playoff series where Indiana predictably exposed the zone looks. Still, where Erik Spoelstra and the Heat utilized zone looks to expose the Celtics’ offensive deficiencies, Boston might see a matchup where they can take advantage of poor shooting in a lineup or other potential weaknesses that allow a zone to succeed. The Raptors’ lack of decisive playmaking and shooting made it a fit. It probably wouldn’t last long in May against the Pacers. It still provided a change of pace.

Mazzulla first previewed different defensive looks early in training camp on J.J. Redick’s podcast, saying Boston didn’t have a curveball defensively as it fell to 11th out of 16 playoff teams in defensive rating. The Celtics clearly tinkered behind the scenes with some zone schemes in Summer League and in practice at camp, but players stayed tight-lipped about specifics. Early game action saw both zone and pressing, though only in short spurts. This month saw Boston try to survive extended stretches, in part to gain a strategic advantage, while also keeping game plans fresh for the Celtics as they advanced to 31-9 by building seven 30-point leads in recent weeks. 

The Celtics returned to more traditional coverages and closed Toronto out, 21-21, in their final meeting of the season. Boston improved to 8-0 against the Raptors over the last two seasons, incomprehensible as recently as 2022. On Monday, the Celtics flipped the kind of defensive oddities those Nick Nurse teams would flash against them back on the Raptors.

“We f*** it up sometimes, but just our communication,” Tatum told reporters in Toronto. “We’re always talking and everybody has to be out there talking. It’s fun being in it. We’re still figuring it out ourselves.”