Pressure Creates Diamonds, The Celtics Outlast Them

The Warriors rolled the dice with a little-used defensive scheme, but it wasn't enough to slow down Joe Mazzulla's Celtics

Without Stephen Curry, Jimmy Butler and Seth Curry, it felt like the Celtics could be walking into a trap game on Thursday night.

The All-Star break was definitely needed. Tired legs got a chance to rest. I’m sure some practice sessions took place. And everyone got a chance to re-focus heading into the stretch run.

Breaks, however short, can often be momentum killers, though.

I know that if I had a week off from my new routine, I would be fighting an uphill battle to get it locked back in again.

So being tasked with a four-game West Coast swing, off the back of a momentum-slowing break, is a far-from-ideal return to action.

Or at least so I thought.

The Celtics had other plans.

Rather than looking rusty, disjointed and clunky, they came out ready to play.

Jaylen Brown’s first five made buckets came via splitting the defense — all of them involved him navigating two defenders as the Warriors looked to pinch on his drives, put bodies on the low help-line or send help to clog up his lanes.

Things didn’t start great. The Celtics missed their first three field goals. Those attempts came sandwiched between a 1-for-2 showing at the free-throw line from Neemias Queta and a bad decision turnover from Derrick White.

But once Brown made that first defense-splitting bucket two minutes into the game, the energy started to shift.

For anyone who isn’t a fan of the three-point movement in the NBA, this game wasn’t for you. In total, the Warriors and Celtics combined for 95 threes on the night — that’s the exact same number of shots the Celtics took for the entire game.

Perimeter basketball can be exciting, though. It’s all about how you generate those looks and whether they’re a product of a smart system or whether you’re just jacking them up with a hope and a prayer.

Both Boston and Golden State fell into the former category.

At least in this game.

Most of the Celtics assists — and there were a lot (36, to be exact) — came via spray offense. They drove, they kicked, the rock continually moved, and shooters attacked the space Boston’s Mazzulla-ball created.

When assisted shots weren’t coming via a drive, they came via screening actions. The clip below shows the Celtics first trey of the night. It might be a simple action, but Neemias Queta's setting a drag screen opened up Sam Hauser for the easy look off the catch.

Hauser takes one dribble to get to his spot and hits the pull-up three to keep pace with a Warriors team that looked to come out of the gates hot.

It didn’t take long from that point for the Celtics to settle into an offensive rhythm that manipulated Golden State’s defensive principles to create scoring opportunities at will. Part of that was because Brown had one of his most complete performances of the season, which is saying a lot. And part of it was also because the Celtics put in the work on defense.

Of course, it’s easy to get back and lock in defensively when you’re converting 51.6% of your looks and winning the rebounding battle on both ends.

“Defending them at the highest level starts with our ability to attack them,” Mazzulla said during his postgame news conference. “We kept them out of transition with not as many live-ball turnovers in that second quarter. We got great shots, and we were able to get back on defense. I thought for the majority of the game, our defense was disciplined, and they tested that. They test your body position. They test your angles. They test your positioning. And, you know, I thought we handled that well.”

With each defensive stop, the Celtics grew in confidence and dominance. It wasn’t until the fourth quarter that the wheels started coming loose. And even then, it took Steve Kerr rolling out a 1-2-1-1 diamond press to start turning the tide.

I don’t recall ever seeing a diamond press in the NBA. Turns out, Payton Pritchard hadn’t either…

“I haven't seen a diamond press like that in a long time, maybe since college or even AU day,” Pritchard said. “So definitely got to do a better job of just handling it. We had some bonehead turnovers. So just do better. It's a good learning experience to never take your foot off the pedal.”

So, what is a diamond press?

From my understanding, it’s a form of full-court zonal pressure defense. full-court zonal pressure defense. And, like every concept, it has defined roles…

You have the “mad man” — the player designated to initially pressure the ball. They’re jumping, shouting, calling out “ball, ball, ball,” and looking to both speed up the ball-handler’s decision-making while angling out the passing lanes.

Then, you have two defenders a few feet back. These are usually your best two defenders. One is in the ball-side lane, the other on the non-ball (weakside) lane.

From there, you have a defender positioned near the half-court line. That’s your interceptor. Their job is to deter pitch-ahead passes, or, if the ball-handler somehow breaks through the first two zones of the defense, pick them up and slow down the drive.

Finally, you’ve got your safety. They’re essentially a very deep drop defender in the coverage. They’re usually positioned at the top of their own three-point line, with the onus of dropping deeper to protect the rim or picking up weakside cutters that are trying to laterally stretch out the defense.

A diamond press is a high-risk, high-reward defensive wrinkle. If it goes wrong, you’re going to be overwhelmed on the break, with your safety and interceptor likely being put in a 2-on-4 situation. If it goes well, you blow up the offense high on the court and get easy scoring opportunities — like this play below…

Ballsy call from Kerr.

It paid off, on a few different occasions, though.

Kudos.

All-in-all, this was a successful start to the Celtics West Coast road trip. They’re now 36-19, four straight wins away from reaching the treasured 40-20 mark. The win has certainly reignited the team’s momentum heading into Sunday’s game against the Los Angeles Lakers, too.

You’ve got to love what this scrappy, young and talented team is doing. I know I am… And the scary part? Jayson Tatum isn’t even back yet.

…And on that note…

Check out today’s podcast.

I was joined by Billy Calabrese to discuss the win over Golden State, Jaylen’s big night and what Tatum’s return could mean for some of the younger rotation players for the remainder of the season.

I’ve got you on YouTube

On Spotify

And on Apple

So, feel free to pick your poison, tune in, subscribe and get some additional thoughts on last night’s game.

And with that, I’ll leave you to enjoy the rest of your day, make it an awesome one!