BOSTON — It was telling that, in the immediate aftermath of Sunday’s Game 1 victory over the Indiana Pacers, Boston Celtics guard Kyrie Irving made it a point in his walkoff interview with TNT to note how much he missed Marcus Smart and dedicated the win to his injured teammate.
When the Celtics announced that Smart would miss 4-6 weeks with an oblique tear, the immediate concern was not only how the team would defend Pacers sharpshooting wing Bojan Bogdanovic but also account for all the hustle plays that Smart has made his calling card.
If Sunday’s Game 1 was any indication, the Celtics are hoping an uptick in intensity throughout the roster will help fill Smart’s void. The Celtics leaned heavy on a trio of wings to chase Bogdanovic but everyone on the roster seemed to ratchet up their defensive play and Boston produced one of its finest defensive efforts of the season.
According to the NBA’s advanced tracking data, the trio of Jaylen Brown, Gordon Hayward, and Jayson Tatum joined forces to defend Bogdanovic on 58 of his 68 defended possessions and that triumvirate allowed a mere 2 points on 1-of-7 shooting.
Bogdanovic finished with 12 points on 4-of-11 shooting overall but the Celtics limited him to three 3-point attempts and he missed all of them, thanks to the premium put on staying attached and contesting his shots.
But this was a team-wide effort in staying stout. An example:
With the game tied at 45 early in the third quarter, Bogdanovic caught the ball near the top of the arc with Brown chasing. Brown managed to get over the top of an oncoming screen before Domantas Sabonis could get set and denied Bogdanovic’s initial attempt to drive. Bogdanovic eventually accelerated to his right but this time Aron Baynes shuffled over with help, forcing Bogdanovic to give up the ball.
The Celtics were a bit scattered at this point but raced to find their matchups, including Brown, who was back in front of Bogdanovic by the time he got the ball back on the wing with 11 on the shot clock.
Boston Celtics
Bogdanovic called for a screen then, hoping to catch Brown leaning, raced away from it. Brown shuffled to stay in front and kept fighting after getting pinned when Bogdanovic cut back towards the original screen.
Baynes trusted Brown to stick with Bogdanovic and stayed attached to roll man Myles Turner. When Bogdanovic tried to thread a pass to the paint, Al Horford shuffled over to further disrupt and Tatum ended up with a steal.
Brown wasn’t perfect — Bogdanovic beat him in the opening minutes for a layup — but the effort rarely waned. The Celtics ultimately limited the Pacers to two third-quarter field goals — only one of which actually went through the cylinder, another was a goaltend — while rallying ahead in the frame.
"I expected [the defensive intensity],” said Irving, who dove on the floor chasing a steal in the third quarter, showcasing his own Smart-like grit at a time when Boston was taking control of the game.
I just think that just on the offensive end there were going to be some things that were going to happen. But, defensively, I knew that our length, our versatility were going to be a positive for us, especially in this series.”
Later Irving added, “Defensively, I think we’re going to be in the right spots. It’s just matching that effort and being smart about it.”
Being smart about it? Or being Smart about it.
Brown was credited with a team-high 31 possessions defended against Bogdanovic and limited him to 2 points on 1-of-4 shooting. Pacers players were 2-of-9 shooting for 5 points in 57 total possessions against Brown, according to the NBA’s matchup data.
Hayward held Bogdanovic scoreless in 17 possessions, while Tatum was credited with doing the same on 10 possessions (Tatum, though, was beat by Bogdanovic on a layup in the second half but wasn’t tagged the primary defender on the play).
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that much of Boston’s success on the perimeter can be traced to the stout defense they got on the back line, especially from Horford.
Consider this early first-quarter sequence in which Horford found himself isolated on Pacers guard Darren Collison. Alone on the wing, Collison got fancy with his dribble and Horford braced for a drive. Boston's big man kept shuffling his feet and Collison couldn’t find an opening before electing to pull up from about 15 feet. Leaning in as Horford raised his arms vertically to avoid fouling, Collison lost the ball and Horford dove on the floor to tip it to Baynes for a turnover.
Tatum, Irving, and Hayward each generated two steals while Tatum had a monster block on Thad Young late in the second quarter when the Pacers were looking to extend a double-digit lead.
Thanks in part to a dominating third quarter, the Celtics limited the Pacers to 74 points. The Pacers’ shooting splits of 33.3 FG% / 22.2 3PT% / 57.1 FT% were ghastly and helped the Celtics win a game in which they shot a cringeworthy 36.4 percent overall.
"This is not a series for the timid, we’ve known that going in,” said Celtics coach Brad Stevens. "This is a heck of a team with a heck of a coach and the minute you let your foot off the gas or you don’t play the right way you’re going to get beat.”
It’s the sort of game that Smart would have loved. He took to Twitter after Sunday’s game to write, “Hate not being out there. As a TEAM we can do anything. Let’s get Game 2. One at a time."
The Celtics have to continue to play hard and play smart. Or maybe they just need to keep being Smart about the way they play.
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