The Boston Celtics moved to 5-1 on the season following a hard-fought battle against the Orlando Magic, where their early offensive actions gave them the edge.
After all the talk about playing with pace in the summer of 2025, you could have been forgiven for not being drawn into the chatter about Joe Mazzulla’s team embracing a more movement-based system this season. After all, that talk in 2025 never amounted to much change on the floor, so why expect a different result this year?
Sure, Brad Stevens has openly admitted the Celtics need to attack the rim more, and a varied offense is the path forward. Putting that idea into action could have been tough if Mazzulla had resisted the need to change.
Mazzulla hasn’t resisted, though.
A key aspect of this new-look Celtics offense has been how quickly they look to get into their actions when bringing the ball up the floor. Against the Orlando Magic on Sunday, that aspect was on full display, as the Celtics found sustained success when running actions off of drag screens1 and early action veer screens.2
This Celtics team is faster, more dynamic, and operating with an egalitarian mindset — and both drag and early screening actions have been at the core of that approach.
What I like most about the Celtics’ approach is that they’re using early screening sets to set up secondary attacks. In doing so, Boston threatens multiple scoring levels at once and leans into the gravity of the collective group, rather than relying solely on the ball-handler and a single shooting threat.
Mazzulla is bending opposing defenses with all five pieces on the chessboard.
Take this play, for example.
Jayson Tatum is bringing the ball up the court, with Paul George on the opposite side. Derrick White, Neemias Queta, and Hugo Gonzalez have already run to their spots to occupy the Orlando Magic’s defense.
Queta sets a step-up rip screen for George (also known as a slice screen) before veering into an on-ball screen for Tatum. Take note of George’s movement here. He doesn’t look to relocate and take himself out of the action. Instead, he loops his cut into a rip screen on Nikola Vucevic.
Suddenly, the Celtics have put the Magic in a bind.
Orlando has to deal with: