Prior to Saturday’s loss to the Memphis Grizzlies, Jrue Holiday had never attempted more than 18 shots as a member of the Boston Celtics. Holiday shattered that record when he took a team-high 26 attempts against Memphis — which all seemed to be part of the plan for the Grizz.
It was clear right from the get-go that Taylor Jenkins’ strategy was to force Boston to defer to Holiday. Possession after possession, the veteran guard was left wide-open as Memphis sent help at the Celtics’ stars. He wound up tallying 23 points, but he could’ve had much more had he been efficient. He made just eight shots which included four triples on 17 tries.
There’s no getting around it. What the Grizzlies did threw Boston out of their normal rhythm and translated into success for the visitors. Despite that, Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla isn’t worried about more teams trying their luck with the “bold” gameplan.
“It’s a bold strategy,” Mazzulla told reporters after the loss. “He’s an All-Star who shoots over 40% from three. I think it’s a risky one. I thought he handled it great. We empower him, we want him to shoot any shot where he’s open and I think that’s a huge gift because now we’re going to see it again and it’s going to be great for us.”
Holiday, who scored his 16,000th career point Saturday, won’t be deterred by a cold outing.
“Gotta keep on shooting them; I’m too wide open not to,” he explained. “Honestly, I kind of liked it. It’s been a while since I’ve been shooting that much…I’ll continue to shoot.”
He’s right. It’s pretty rare to see him get to shoot so much. In 89 regular-season games with the Celtics, Jrue has attempted 15 or more shots just seven times. For those wondering, Boston has a record of 4-3 in those games.
Again, the “have Jrue take all of the shots” strategy worked for Memphis in a big way. Not only did it pay off because Holiday was cold, but it also threw off the team’s rhythm as a whole.
Instead of playing a well-rounded offensive game, Boston wound up having the 34-year-old take nearly 40% of their shots in the first half. By the time the Cs found themselves down by 12 at the break, he had already fired up 17 attempts -- again, his previous Celtic-high was 18.
In order for that many shots to go to Holiday, someone else has to take less.
That someone else was Jaylen Brown, who only got four looks in that span.
“Yeah, it’s basketball,” Brown told reporters. “I mean, it’s no determinant of how many shots I should shoot going into every night. Obviously, I like to be involved in all the actions and stuff like that. But, you know, on a team like this, I don’t mind being a distributor and setting guys up and I feel like I did that a lot. I just was too sloppy with the basketball tonight, which was not good, I’ll clean that up.”
Brown later echoed the same message as both Mazzulla and Holiday. He expects other teams to throw this sort of scheme at them, but doesn’t feel that it’ll be a problem because they’ll be ready for it.
If there’s anything that Celtics fans should know about Mazzulla’s team, it’s that they’re going to learn from their shortcomings. The real question should be whether or not Holiday will be able to reach the efficiency levels that we all saw from him last season when he drilled 60% of his corner threes.
He’s been only half as efficient this year.
Yes, the sample size is somewhat small, but Boston is a quarter of the way through the season now. The concern about Holiday’s shooting shouldn’t be at zero, but it also shouldn’t be through the roof. Despite the above, the Cs are still off to the same start that they were last season, record-wise, at 19-5.
Nonetheless, the coming weeks will tell if Taylor Jenkins really found the key to beating the Celtics, or if he just played his cards right on this particular night.
