When requested about Luke Kornet in his postgame press convention after the Celtics walloped the Pistons on Thursday night time, Joe Mazzulla praised his versatility. “He can play by himself, he can play with KP, he can play with Al,” Mazzulla mentioned. “When these completely different lineups are on the market, we reap the benefits of his defensive versatility. He does an awesome job at taking part in off the opposite guys on the offensive finish, type of noticed that together with his screening, his chopping, his passing and his offensive rebounding.”
Positionless basketball is one thing that comes up so much in basketball circles. Consider Draymond Inexperienced at middle for the Warriors. They have been in a position to try this as a result of his defensive versatility allowed Golden State to play smaller lineups and have extra capturing on the court docket.
Nevertheless, the Celtics ought to use their versatility to play greater.
Over the past two seasons, Luke Kornet and Kristaps Porzingis have performed 96 minutes. They’ve been dominant in that small pattern measurement, scoring 131.6 factors per 100 possessions and giving up 105.6 factors per 100 possessions.
Having two excessive IQ 7-footers who can move and minimize at a excessive degree on the ground on the similar time can create good outcomes.
Thursday’s win towards the Pistons was an awesome instance of this.
The minimize by Kornet is what will get Jaden Ivey to break down off of Derrick White within the nook. A move by Kristaps to Kornet who shortly throws it to White within the nook ends in three factors for the Celtics.
“Celtics basketball,” as NBC Sports activities Boston’s Drew Carter mentioned.
You’d suppose that it’s the offense that’s harm by this lineup, and with an even bigger pattern measurement, it might be, however with the capturing that the Celtics have and the spacing that each gamers can create, I don’t suppose it will.
The protection, and rim safety extra particularly, is elite with these guys sharing the court docket.
Kornet runs Simone Fontecchio off the three-point line and has the assistance of Porzingis behind him to guard the rim. As an alternative of doing the ‘Kornet Kontest,’ (regardless of what number of instances Scal tells us it’s efficient, I will not imagine him), having KP behind him allowed Luke to expire and stop a three-point try by Fontecchio, a profession 37% three-point shooter.
On this play, Jaden Ivey’s layup try is affected by Kornet’s size on the rim, forcing him to take a distinct angle. If Porzingis just isn’t on the market, that is possible a dump off move to Isaiah Stewart on the roll. As an alternative, Porzingis’ presence forces Ivey to place up a troublesome layup, which he badly missed.
I’m not actually certain what Ausar Thompson thought was going to occur on this play. He’s making an attempt to get his personal spotlight by dunking on each 7-footers however that was not going to occur.
Having Kornet and Porzingis on the ground makes the Celtics protection impenetrable on the rim and I hope Joe Mazzulla determined to make use of this pairing extra this season.
