The Celtics Miss Time Lord
Boston could have used Robert Williams III in the first finals rematch.
The Golden State Warriors and Boston Celtics met for a finals rematch in a prime time game on Saturday night. Despite some critical absences - Andrew Wiggins for the Warriors, Robert Williams III and Al Horford for the Celtics - the rematch was much anticipated. Boston has looked the best team in the league thus far while the Warriors seem to be gradually righting the ship after a shaky start. Neither team’s defense has been at last season’s level, when they made up the league’s two best defenses and two of the three best half court defenses.1 In Boston’s case, a ready explanation presents itself in the absence of Robert Williams III after offseason surgery. The Celtics defense became a juggernaut last season after they started using Williams as a roving, weak side helper.
Time Lord’s absence proved a difference maker in the Celtics’ Saturday loss to the Warriors. It wasn’t the only factor of course. Klay Thompson turned in a strong offensive game, helping the Warriors jump out to a lead in the first quarter. In my Finals preview in May, one of the X-factors that I had mentioned for the Warriors was Klay’s mid range shooting, given that the Celtics force a ton of opponent shots from that area. They lead the league in opponent mid rangers this season and Klay burned them there.
Nearly a fifth of the Warriors’ shots were long mid range attempts, amongst the most for any game this season per Cleaning the Glass. That they shot 65% on those attempts went a long way towards securing the win.
That having been said, this would have been a different game had Williams III been in the lineup. Jordan Poole scored on a few floaters, unafraid to take on backup Celtics big man Luke Kornet and interim starter Blake Griffin.2
During the Finals, Williams III deterred such floater attempts when playing the same drop coverage on pick and rolls, while also recovering to snuff out rim attempts on the same play.
The Celtics’ drop coverage took on water in the Finals despite bigs with the defensive pedigree of Horford and Williams III executing it. It collapsed spectacularly when Griffin and Kornet were the personnel trying to execute it, prompting Coach Joe Mazulla to try going small instead. Those small lineups only cast the absence of Williams’ help side deterrence in harsher relief. At times the Celtics help personnel looked frozen, unsure of when to commit off of their man.
Today’s NBA can expose big men who are forced to navigate screens on the perimeter; consider this a form of payback. Grant Williams and Jayson Tatum just don’t have Time Lord’s roving help instincts. Equally important, they don’t have his tools. Here’s Williams III coming over to snuff out a Steph Curry attempt in the Finals:
And here’s Saturday night:
To be fair to Coach Mazulla (who is one of the front runners for Coach of the Year), it isn’t like the bigs he had available were faring any better:
To finish, let’s go half full/half empty from the Celtics’ perspective:
Half full: The Warriors got hot from an area the Celtics are happy to let opponents take shots in, but more importantly, the return of Time Lord and Horford could solve many of Saturday’s issues. And the Celts missed many attempts they would normally make.
Half empty: Robert Williams III cannot play 48 minutes even when healthy. What’s Plan B?
Interestingly, the team sandwiched between them for the best half court defense, Phoenix, has also experienced a drop off this season.
The Celtics were a disastrous minus 9 in Kornet’s 9 minutes on the floor. I like Kornet, but Saturday was unfortunately not his night and he was quickly relegated to the bench.