The Boston Celtics’ outstanding play on both ends has propelled them to the top of the league standings this season, demonstrating that their significant summer purchases were worthwhile. The trade for point guard Derrick White was one of the first major transactions that established the Celtics as we know them today, even before the summer’s major acquisitions.
Even though that Boston team was not quite good enough to win it all, the trades that brought in defensive threat Jrue Holiday and star big man Kristaps Porzingis during the summer laid the groundwork for the Celtics to grow into the formidable team they are now in the first half of the NBA’s 2023–24 season.
Before the current season began, the host of the “Sporting Logically” program took some time to delve deeply into how those moves had changed the Celtics.
FURTHER READING:
Jrue Holiday’s defense has been incorporated into the Boston Celtics’ scheme
Splitting the distance between the two Boston backcourt models of recent seasons, veteran Boston Celtics guard Julius Holiday is a defensive specialist with the steadiness of a floor marshal like Derrick White mixed with a hint of Marcus Smart’s chaos magic.
The Celtics have incorporated a new defensive identity into their style of play in order to take advantage of his special skill set and ability to guard players, even ones with the stature of Joel Embiid, for brief periods of time. Holiday is not someone that opponents want to face as a defender, whether they are utilizing him to slow down the top scorers on the other team or, as Boston once did, to use big man Robert Williams III as a disruptive roamer.
Joe Mazzulla, the head coach of the Boston Celtics, recently had a conversation with “Zolak and Bertrand” on NBC Sports Boston to discuss Holiday’s defensive efforts.
