There wasn’t a lot to worry about for Joe Mazzulla heading into Thursday’s road tilt against the Wizards. Boston had blown out Washington in their last two visits to DC last year and the Wizards are in the hunt for Cooper Flagg this season with the roster they’ve assembled.
With Sam Hauser (back) sidelined as a late scratch entering the matchup, the contest would be a chance to see exactly where Mazzulla had his pecking order off the bench. The expectation would be that Jordan Walsh would soak up some of Hauser’s minutes off the bench and get a taste of some rotation members with the regulars after a strong preseason.
Things got a little more interesting in the first quarter when the Wizards came out red hot from the field thanks to hot shooting from Jordan Poole. In a very uptempo game, the instinct would be for many around the league to play smaller and faster. Mazzulla did not abide by those expectations on Thursday night.
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Instead, when he turned to his bench for the first time in the first quarter, Mazzulla leaned into his size. Double bigs (Luke Kornet and Xavier Tillman) got plenty of run together early alongside Payton Pritchard. When Mazzulla elected to go deeper into his bench, he declined to turn to Walsh. Instead, Neemias Queta got a chance as the 9th man, making three of Mazzulla’s four subs off the bench true bigs.
As the game progressed, the decision made more and more sense. Washington had a couple of true bigs off the bench (Bagley, Valancinuas) that would need big bodies defending them to slow them down especially on the glass. Playing the bigs also allowed to keep some pressure off Al Horford (20 minutes) from banging around down low against the bigs.
Perhaps most importantly, the heavy reliance on bigs helped to shore up Boston’s defense after an ugly start in the first quarter. The Celtics had a bunch better interior presence going double bigs after their start to the game and the Wizards offense fell off a cliff after Poole cooled off. Queta (12 points, 7 rebounds) provided a terrific spark in his 14 minutes while Tillman knocked down a pair of 3s as a stretch power forward.
All in all, the unconventional rotation helped the Celtics put the game away by the end of the third quarter and kept all the starters below 30 minutes for the second straight night. The bigs also earned praise from Mazzulla after the win.
“I just liked our bigs’ ability to just kind of protect the rim and make multiple efforts and be physical on the offensive end,” Mazzulla told reporters in Washington. “The guys did a great job fighting for spacing.”
The Celtics are going to need to lean heavily on that group all year long particularly as rest nights arrive for Horford. Mazzulla is getting them ready for those bigger roles with smart strategic deployments like we saw Thursday night.
