Holiday, White put Celtics on the defensive
This offseason the Celtics traded away guard Marcus Smart, the 2021-22 Defensive Player of the Year, and center Robert Williams, an All-Defense selection that season.
Such high-profile departures would cripple most defensive units. But within the Celtics organization, there is a belief that Boston could be even better at that end of the floor this year, and it starts with what is transpiring on the perimeter.
On Oct. 1, the Celtics acquired point guard Jrue Holiday, a five-time All-Defense pick. He joins guard Derrick White, who last year vaulted himself — literally and figuratively — into the upper tier of defenders and received All-Defense honors for the first time.
“Both of those guys are tremendous,” said Celtics assistant coach Sam Cassell Friday afternoon. “When you have two guys who can defend like they defend, it makes your defense pretty [expletive] good.”
Coach Joe Mazzulla has given few hints about his preferred starting lineup. He said White would be the team’s starting point guard after the Smart trade, but he never anticipated adding Holiday.
In Boston’s first preseason game last Sunday, Holiday came off the bench. It’s unclear if that was just a trial balloon or something bigger. But even if Holiday and White do not start together, there is no doubt they’ll be on the court at the same time quite often, and that should make opposing guards quiver.
Celtics big man Kristaps Porzingis couldn’t hold back his smile when he was asked about the defensive capabilities of Boston’s talented duo.
“Those dudes are serious,” he said. “It makes my job a lot easier. They’re just elite defenders and they’re playing together. So it’s going to be tough. It’s going to be tough for the other team.”
Last season Boston’s defense was 4.5 points per 100 possessions better with White on the court, the best differential on the team among those who played at least 1,300 minutes. Milwaukee’s defense was 4.1 points per 100 possessions better with Holiday on the floor, second only to the Bucks’ elite rim protector, Brook Lopez.
Among point guards who played at least 2,000 minutes, White and Holiday ranked second and fourth in the NBA, respectively, in defensive RAPTOR, an advanced metric that measures a player’s performance relative to a league average player.
Now, just one week after they started practicing together, they’re quickly hatching plans about how to engulf opponents.
“It’s fun,” Holiday said. “I think the chemistry is there. Even just the first few days of training camp talking to him about what he likes to do defensively, or even just asking him about certain things. But getting out there and actually being able to play with him a bit more, getting that court time
has been good for us.”
Added White: “However many minutes we can get together and continue to build that chemistry, it’s going to be big for us in the long run.”
The 6-foot-5-inch, 220pound Holiday is the more physical of the two. It took just one practice for everyone from his new teammates to team ownership to start gushing about his strength and the sheer force with which he plays.
Cassell said when he was an assistant with the 76ers last year, Philadelphia’s offense generally declined to run dribblehandoffs against the Bucks when Holiday was on the court.
“He was just so good at blowing plays up,” Cassell said, “and we never wanted to put our offense in that kind of stress with Jrue breaking it up.”
The 6-4, 195-pound White is more of a pest, and Cassell said it’s amazing to watch him swarm without fouling, whether hounding ball-handlers before they cross midcourt, or hustling back and stopping a fast-break with an acrobatic blocked shot. He registered three blocks in just 17 minutes in Boston’s preseason win over the 76ers on Wednesday, and Holiday was as impressed as anyone.
“The way he pursues after a screen is amazing,” he said. “I think in my younger days I probably would’ve gone for [these blocks]. But D. White, he’s a really good defender.”
It might be less flashy when they are working in tandem on the perimeter, but it figures to be just as annoying for other teams. Cassell said their individual talents will limit the help defense the Celtics will need to send, keeping Boston from becoming vulnerable elsewhere.
“And their anticipation is offthe-hook,” Cassell said. “They have perfect timing the way they shoot the gaps going for steals. It’s tremendous to see those guys coexisting.”
NBA offenses are constantly hunting mismatches using fastbreaks and screens and other tactics to keep a defense off balance. But in Boston’s switchheavy scheme, there will be no weak link on the perimeter when White and Holiday share the floor.
“There is no drop-off,” Holiday said. “I feel like if we switch . . . it’s going to be a tough night for guards. I feel like a lot of times maybe there’s a little bit of a drop-off in terms of trying to get the switch that you want or going against somebody else. But for me and D. White, it’s pretty solid.”