When requested about Luke Kornet in his postgame press convention after the Celtics walloped the Pistons on Thursday evening, Joe Mazzulla praised his versatility. “He can play by himself, he can play with KP, he can play with Al,” Mazzulla stated. “When these completely different lineups are on the market, we make the most of his defensive versatility. He does a fantastic job at taking part in off the opposite guys on the offensive finish, sort of noticed that together with his screening, his slicing, his passing and his offensive rebounding.”
Positionless basketball is one thing that comes up rather a lot in basketball circles. Consider Draymond Inexperienced at heart for the Warriors. They have been ready to do this as a result of his defensive versatility allowed Golden State to play smaller lineups and have extra capturing on the courtroom.
Nevertheless, the Celtics ought to use their versatility to play larger.
During the last 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 cross and minimize at a excessive stage on the ground on the similar time can create good outcomes.
Thursday’s win in opposition to the Pistons was a fantastic instance of this.
The minimize by Kornet is what will get Jaden Ivey to break down off of Derrick White within the nook. A cross by Kristaps to Kornet who shortly throws it to White within the nook leads to three factors for the Celtics.
“Celtics basketball,” as NBC Sports activities Boston’s Drew Carter stated.
You’d suppose that it’s the offense that’s harm by this lineup, and with a much bigger pattern measurement, it could possibly be, however with the capturing that the Celtics have and the spacing that each gamers can create, I don’t suppose it might.
The protection, and rim safety extra particularly, is elite with these guys sharing the courtroom.
Kornet runs Simone Fontecchio off the three-point line and has the assistance of Porzingis behind him to guard the rim. As a substitute of doing the ‘Kornet Kontest,’ (irrespective of what number of occasions Scal tells us it’s efficient, I will not imagine him), having KP behind him allowed Luke to expire and forestall 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 special angle. If Porzingis shouldn’t be on the market, that is probably a dump off cross to Isaiah Stewart on the roll. As a substitute, Porzingis’ presence forces Ivey to place up a tricky layup, which he badly missed.
I’m not actually positive what Ausar Thompson thought was going to occur on this play. He’s attempting 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.
