Jaylen Brown had a tough start to Tuesday evening. He played just 10 first-half minutes before finding his footing and later taking over, helping the Boston Celtics move above .500 for the first time this season.
For all of Brown’s scoring exploits, he did struggle to take care of the rock, ending the night with 8 of Boston’s 19 turnovers. Derrick White chipped in with four, Payton Pritchard and Anfernee Simons had three apiece, and Luka Garza, who struggled to keep control of the rock on multiple occasions, had one.
Somehow, those 19 turnovers only turned into 15 points, as the Celtics found ways to limit Brooklyn’s easy looks, despite being in rotation and under pressure. Still, 19 turnovers are a lot — weirdly, Basketball Reference has it tracked as 20. Either way, it was a season high for the Celtics, in all the wrong ways.
Not all turnovers are made equal. Sometimes, the defense is behind an errant or forced pass. Sometimes, the ball had too much zing on it, and other times, the ball-handler is to blame.
With that in mind, I wanted to take a look at the Celtics’ turnovers, what led to them, and whether they were situational, mistakes, or issues that could recur.
Almost half of the Celtics’ turnovers came via a bad pass or bad decision-making when making a pass. Those are the mistakes I want to focus on today…So, I’ve pulled a few of them that we can go through together.
The above clip shows the Celtics’ second turnover of the game — and the first one for Brown on the night. The initial action is fine, just a simple angle pick-and-roll; however, the Nets’ defense does well when guarding, switching instantly and removing any potential advantage.
Brown spots Payton Pritchard in the weakside slot and looks to swing the ball. Herein lies the issue. Pritchard looks open because Egor Demin is zoning up around the free-throw line extended. By doing this, he’s there as a helper if Brown looks to turn the corner, or can jump into a trap should Brown hit Queta on the short-roll.
Boston’s problem is that Demin did a great job controlling his distance, allowing him to also be an active participant in defending the passing lane, which he did. If Brown had put some more zip on the pass, it might have gotten to its intended target. He didn’t, and it didn’t. Still, we all know that Brown is better than that.
Here’s another “bad pass” turnover, this time from Anfernee Simons.
