Earlier this season, the Boston Celtics were put in a pickle. The Memphis Grizzlies were in town, and they employed a unique defensive strategy against the Celtics. More specifically, against Jrue Holiday. They decided to completely help off of Holiday and make him beat them, choosing to pressure the rest of the Celtics roster.
Holiday shot 8-of-26 from the field and 4-of-17 from behind the three-point line, and the Celtics lost 127-121. Since then, Holiday has played well, but he’s also made it a point to diversify his offensive game a bit. Boston has been utilizing him in a bunch of different ways.
And it’s working very well.
Jrue Holiday is impacting Celtics offense without threes
Rather than standing idle behind the three-point line, waiting for the Celtics’ offense to give him an opening to shoot, Holiday has been weasling his way inside the arc.
Most notably, his work out of the dunker spot has been amazing for Boston. As one of the Celtics’ stars, Jayson Tatum or Jaylen Brown (usually), handles the ball, Holiday makes himself open near the paint. This either leads to a bucket for himself or someone else.
Here, Holiday makes the most out of the Tatum-Luke Kornet pick-and-roll, which has been incredible for Boston this year. Kornet screens Keegan Murray out of the play, and Jonas Valanciunas steps up to contain Tatum. Keon Ellis then has to help on Kornet, who is rolling to the rim.
Holiday sees this, relocates to the opposite side of the rim, and makes himself open for a Tatum pass that leads to an easy bucket.
“He can just read defenses really well,” Joe Mazzulla said of Holiday’s work out of the dunker and off cuts after the Celtics' win in Brooklyn on March 15. “He can anticipate where the help is coming from. He can anticipate what the defensive coverage is, and he just has a knack for making two-on-one reads.”
Meanwhile, in the Celtics’ win over the Brooklyn Nets, he sees that they are doubling Brown on the perimeter. He slides into the dunker spot, which allows Brown to dump it into him.
From there, Kornet gets open under the rim because Brooklyn’s defense has to shift to cover Holiday, and all he has to do is find his big man for an open shot at the rim.
Holiday’s post-ups have also been an effective method for him as he continues to diversify his offensive game. He used this in the Celtics’ recent win over the Phoenix Suns.
In one instance, he bully-balled Kevin Durant in the post. And in another, he saw rookie Ryan Dunn press out at the three-point line too heavily. He drove around him, put his shoulder into his chest, and found a way to get to the bucket.
The veteran guard also found a way to help the Celtics get around zone defenses.
When the San Antonio Spurs broke out a zone look, Holiday timed a perfect cut into the middle of the floor, bent the defense to cover him, and fed Kornet on the block for an easy score.
Even as the ball-handler, Holiday manages to get inside, just as he did here against the Utah Jazz. He’s been underratedly useful as the ball-handler in the pick-and-roll at times this year, too (this was on full display against the Nets in Brooklyn).
Obviously, the Celtics will need Holiday to hit his threes in the playoffs. It’s a crucial part of their offense and a big reason why they’ve dominated the league for the past couple of years.
But seeing him find other means of effectiveness on that end of the floor is a great sign, and if a team tries to do what the Grizzlies did, he’ll have plenty of counterattacks.
