Neemy Means Business

Neemias Queta dominated in an impressive win for the Boston Celtics

Oh boy.

Two big-time wins in two straight games.

5-1 since the All-Star break.

Still no Jayson Tatum.

Pass me those green goggles.

It’s ironic, right? The Celtics started the season with legitimate concerns about their rebounding. The center position was considered the greatest area of weakness. Queta’s role as a starter was questioned by some, well, at least by me.

And now, 60 games into the season, Boston just dominated the Philadelphia 76ers on the glass. 59-37 were the final rebounding numbers. 19-10 in Boston’s favor on the offensive glass.

This is the same Sixers team that boasts mythical glass-eater Andre Drummond, too.

You’re going to read a lot about Neemias Queta today. He deserves the coverage, too. I mean, he ended the night with 27 points, 17 rebounds and 3 blocks. Those are impressive numbers. They’re even more impressive when you remember he was the fourth-string center last season.

“He just seemed a little too quick and athletic for us tonight, too big or something,” Nick Nurse said after the game. “He just seemed like every time we’d make a miss, he seemed to be down there reaching up above all the other hands and pulling it down and keeping it alive. He was really hard to handle tonight for sure.”

The competition between him and Nikola Vucevic is likely spurring both players to increase their on-court production. The fact that Luka Garza is also on the roster, and has enjoyed some impressive spells this season, means neither Vucevic or Neemy can take their foot off the gas.

Competition creates killers.

And that’s exactly what Neemy showed last night: a killer instinct.

He embraced the Sixers’ physicality. He outworked their front court. And his athleticism made all the difference, both in the open and half-court.

One area that I really liked from Neemy was how he timed his rolls to the rim. He’s grown so much in that regard.

Keep an eye on Neemy in this action. Watch how he stays put when Derrick White comes off the pick-and-roll. Neemy waits for the defense to collapse on White before making his cut to the rim.

The delayed roll means that Neemy is attacking defenders who have already planted their feet. He’s cutting into space with multiple players looking toward the ball. The result is an easy pass for White and a pretty uncontested dunk from Neemy.

Delaying his roll is only a slight tweak, but it’s one that can make all the difference, especially against rosters that sink to contain penetration trap or pinch.

Controlling your timing on rolls takes discipline. Each time you choose to try to delay your roll/cut, there’s a chance the play doesn’t evolve in a way that allows the roll/cut to occur. Neemy’s growth as a “delay” big means that he is still a threat when operating on the perimeter, primarily due to his hand-off creation and screening improvements.

Nevertheless, we’re only going to see Neemy work out of delayed rolls in a handful of possessions each game. Still, his timing means that during those possessions, he will be a consistent scoring threat for the Celtics. That’s not something I would have said at the start of the season.

Talking of discipline…Neemy’s ability to zone up when operating as a drop defender is another improvement that’s paying dividends as we approach the stretch run.

The Celtics often have Neemy guarding PnR’s up-to-touch, allowing him to either drop, hedge and recover or switch — depending on matchups and scheme.

For most of last night’s game, he played up-to-touch on Drummond. However, in the above clip, he chooses to hang back in a deeper drop, protecting the paint and zoning up between the free-throw line and restricted area.

That decision allows him to kill VJ Edgecombe’s driving line, leading to the rookie taking a heavily contested pull-up jumper, with Jaylen Brown right there to speed up his release and keep him off balance.

If Neemy was playing higher up the floor or chose not to rotate and kill the lane, Edgecombe would likely have gotten to the rim, at which point anything could have happened.

Still, the story of the night, at least for me, was Neemy’s finishing on the move.

“The big was up, like Drummond was up on the screen, so those seams were open,” Brown said in his postgame news conference. “We just gave him the ball and trusted him to make the right decision every time. He was able to get it going. He had some nice up-and-unders in the seam and stuff like that that helped propel us to a win. But, you know, their big was up so we just trusted us in the seam and he made the right play every single time.”

I’ve been against Neemy working off the dribble this season. It feels like he averages one or two possessions per game where he tries to beat his man off the bounce when looking to get downhill. I’ve preferred him to stick to his strengths, attacking around the rim or on the roll.

However, it would appear the reps he’s been getting in putting the ball on the floor are starting to pay off.

The clip above is a prime example of what Brown was talking about in his news conference.

Drummond is below the level of the screen, but he’s still up on the floor, looking to meet/contain White at the three-point line. Edgecombe doesn’t switch on contact, leaving both Drummond and Edgecombe on White, which in turn allows Neemy to cut toward the rim — attacking the seam of the defense.

A smart pocket pass from White finds Neemy on the run. A dig from the Sixers forces Neemy to pick up the rock after his initial dribble. Yet, with no big protecting the rim, it’s easy money for Neemy to cover space, get to the rack and hammer it down.

Let’s be real, he covered some serious ground on those steps.

When Boston acquired Vucevic at the Feb. 5 trade deadline, I was on board with moving him into the starting lineup. Not necessarily permanently, but at least to see how things looked with the added floor spacing.

Now, I’m not so sure. Neemy has continued to improve. He’s rising to the challenge of having Vucevic and Garza behind him in the pecking order. And, when his number was called due to his size and athletic advantage, he came up clutch.

I’m comfortable, no, confident that he can be a difference maker in the postseason, especially if we get this version of him for a game or two each series.

As far as I’m concerned, this was Neemy’s best game in a Celtics jersey. Yes, even better than his 20-rebound night against the Denver Nuggets back in January.

More of that, please.

These green goggles feel good.