Short-handed Celtics make the most of second chances in 113-103 win over Hawks
BOSTON — Al Horford ’s most impressive rebound Sunday night did not lead to a Boston Celtics basket. After Horford kicked out the basketball, Jayson Tatum closed out the possession by missing a contested 3-pointer. Even so, Joe Mazzulla and Jaylen Brown looked at each other shortly after the play to admire Horford’s high-flying board.
“It was like, ‘How lucky are we to have this guy?’” said coach Mazzulla.
Nearly five minutes into the fourth quarter of Boston’s 113-103 win, Horford started in one corner of the court. Following a Sam Hauser miss, Horford pursued the basketball nearly all the way to the other corner. He out-hustled two Atlanta Hawks to the loose ball and secured the rebound by out-leaping Trae Young and Onyeka Okongwu .
“The mindset,” said Mazzulla. “He set the mindset. And that’s something that we’ve been a little inconsistent with, is our mindset, I would say overall. Our guys want to be great, they want to win, but our mindset has been a little inconsistent. But (against Atlanta), it felt like we had it back. And we just (need) to fight for that.”
The Celtics are talented, but Mazzulla wants them to be grimy too. He wants them to dig games out of the dirt in games when their shots are off. He wants them to supplement their usual tough shot-making by giving themselves other ways to score. It was telling that when Mazzulla fielded questions about his team’s recent offensive slippage, he didn’t bring up the need for more beautiful ball movement. Instead, he brought up a couple of ways the Celtics needed to play with more energy. He said they needed to play faster and get into their spacing more quickly. He said they needed to return to crashing the offensive glass.
“We did a good job of that in the first 10 games,” Mazzulla said. “Our crash rate was higher, our offensive rebounds were higher. We have to continue to do that.”
Mazzulla’s team answered his calls by setting a new season high with 18 offensive rebounds. Each player that appeared in the game notched at least one except Payton Pritchard. Neemias Queta , playing for just the second time this season, grabbed six offensive rebounds over 15 minutes off the bench. Horford missed all five of his 3-point attempts, but tracked down a season-high 15 rebounds — his most in a game since March 3, 2022. The Celtics shot just 13 for 47 (27.7 percent) on 3-point attempts but were still able to hold off the Hawks without injured starters Kristaps Porziņģis (left calf) and Jrue Holiday (right ankle).
“Just the margins,” said Mazzulla. “We won the shot margin, we won the free throws, we won the turnovers, we won the offensive rebounds. Those are the things that we have to fight to do all the time. It’s easier said than done, but that’s a recipe for winning. And we have to fight — you’re not going to dominate all of them like that, but those are the things that we got to try to do.”
Mazzulla sounded like he wanted his team to return to some of the basics after showing a bit of recent slippage. The Celtics entered Sunday night with the 27th-ranked offense over their previous five games. Though they still went 3-2 over that stretch, close wins in Toronto and Memphis helped to mask Boston’s offensive struggles. Offensive rebounding, a surprise early-season strength, regressed significantly over those games. After starting the regular season with a heightened focus on that area, the Celtics set their season low with four offensive rebounds during Wednesday’s win against the Milwaukee Bucks and tied it in their next game while falling to the Orlando Magic .
Mazzulla wanted Boston to start producing second-chance opportunities again.
“I think it’s just like you try, especially in the first 25 games, to get great at a bunch of things,” Mazzulla said. “And you emphasize them and as you go through the season: ‘This is important for this stretch of games, this is important, what can you hang on to throughout the entire year?’ And so, I thought maybe as a staff, we didn’t emphasize them enough (recently). So (against Atlanta) that was one of the big keys for us was, ‘Can we get back to our corner crashing?’ And our guys did a great job of executing.”
Young scored 33 points on 12-for-27 shooting for the Hawks. Bojan Bogdanovic drilled his first seven shots, including six 3-point attempts, en route to 23 points off the Atlanta bench. The Celtics never hit a rhythm from outside. They saw a big lead dwindle to 83-77 after allowing a 16-3 third-quarter run. Some playmaking from Brown helped steady the team after that.
The Celtics stayed poised despite a couple of new faces in the rotation. Without Porziņģis and Holiday, Mazzulla named a surprise starter in Dalano Banton . It was the fourth start in the wing’s NBA career. He contributed eight points and five rebounds over 19 minutes. Queta, who had played five minutes all season before Sunday, handled 15 minutes in the short-handed Celtics frontcourt.
“Really just looking for opportunity, and giving those guys a fair chance to play and a chance to execute,” said Mazzulla. “I thought Dalano’s defensive instincts and his defense was really good. I thought he made some good plays in the seams. He’s got really good feel for the game. And I thought Queta just did a good job in his rim protection, and on the offensive end just kind of making the game nasty. So I thought both those guys did a great job and credit to our development staff that keeps them ready, but those guys come in every day. They never know when they’re going to play, and their name was called. So I just wanted to prove to them and show them that their hard work can pay off, and we’re going to need all of them in some capacity at some point.”
Mazzulla might have handled the rotation differently last season. But with the Celtics down a couple of starters, the coach tried something new.
“That’s something I’m much more comfortable doing this year,” Mazzulla said of experimentation. “Obviously, you want to win every game, but you have to kind of think with the end in mind.”
Mazzulla said the Celtics will reevaluate Porziņģis’ calf injury in one week. Though the 7-foot-3 center shared on Instagram that he actually received “good news” about the injury, the timeline on his recovery suggests he will at least miss two more games later this week against the Chicago Bulls and Philadelphia 76ers . That could mean more opportunities for Queta in those games.
Horford could also see an expanded role. Though his big offensive rebound didn’t produce a basket, Mazzulla singled it out as an example of the Celtics’ improved mindset Sunday. He believes players like Horford can be underappreciated, but wanted everyone to pay attention to the 37-year-old big man’s desire to win. Brown certainly noticed it.
“Al just adds to winning,” Brown said. “That play is just a small example of what Al brings to our team. That was a corner crash, ball bounced on the other side of the floor, Al goes up through three guys. It was a huge effort play, and those are the type of plays you need to win games like this.”
(Top photo of Al Horford: Winslow Townson / USA Today)
