{"id":32110,"date":"2025-02-09T13:06:17","date_gmt":"2025-02-09T13:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new365.azontree.com\/?p=32110"},"modified":"2025-02-09T13:06:17","modified_gmt":"2025-02-09T13:06:17","slug":"breaking-joe-mazzullas-clever-adjustment-helps-boston-celtics-rout-knicks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new365.azontree.com\/?p=32110","title":{"rendered":"BREAKING: Joe Mazzulla\u2019s clever adjustment helps Boston Celtics rout Knicks"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Boston Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla signals to players from the bench (AP Photo\/Steven Senne)AP<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Few things have been consistently reliable for the Boston Celtics over the past two months amid some uneven midseason malaise. Yet, with the Celtics facing a crucial showdown with the New York Knicks on Saturday night at Madison Square Garden, urgency was apparent. The Celtics were down two starters in Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis while coming off a dismal performance at home by the starting five against the Mavericks.<\/p>\n

With Boston holding a 1.5 game lead in the standings over the Knicks for the No. 2 seed and tiebreaker implications potentially in play for down the line, this one meant a little more than most regular season games.<\/p>\n

Joe Mazzulla sensed this out of the gate and elected to lean into a grouping that had given him success all year long: double bigs. The coach decided to play the entire game (before garbage time) with two true bigs on the floor against the Knicks, even leaning into unorthodox pairings like Neemias Queta and Luke Kornet together for minutes at multiple points.<\/p>\n

The logic made sense coming off a dismal defensive performance Thursday. Increasing the team\u2019s size and rim protection would prove valuable while enhancing the team\u2019s presence on the glass.<\/p>\n

The groupings have been rock solid for the C\u2019s all year with Horford\/Queta, Horford\/Kornet and Kornet\/Queta all having net ratings above 10. Still it was a rarity to remain committed to those for a full game, yet that\u2019s what the Celtics did in a 131-104 rout with Kornet getting the nod over Sam Hauser to replace Porzingis in the starting five.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, it\u2019s more about just having different ways that you could play and so the season presents opportunity for that and we need to be able to be flexible to win the matchup at that particular time,\u201d Mazzulla said postgame. \u201cAnd I thought tonight that just won the matchup for us. New York\u2019s one of the most physical teams in the league and they do a great job on both ends of the class and so we were able to counteract that a little bit with our physicality.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo credit to the guys though for playing as hard as they did, especially defensively, they were really well connected. All of our bigs, I thought Al, I don\u2019t know if he took two, three shots, but his defensive positioning and physicality was tremendous.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Horford was quiet offensively, Kornet and Queta both scored in double digits with big nights on the offensive glass. The trio each had their moments defensively as well against an undersized Knicks squad outside of Karl-Anthony Towns.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a lot of fun defensively just having that size and presence,\u201d Kornet said. \u201cI think Al\u2019s great, obviously KP\u2019s a lot of the time, and then being able to spend some time with Neemie on the floor, it\u2019s a lot of fun. Honestly, we look forward to it and I definitely enjoy it. I think just defensively and trying to crash the boards and be aggressive on that side of things. Fortunately we have a lot of bigs that have good feel for the game and know how to anticipate and work off each other. So it worked pretty well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The strategy may not work against every opponent but it\u2019s more evident than ever this year than Boston\u2019s defense is at its best with two bigs on the floor. Mazzulla picked a great night to lean into that reality, paving the way for a key Celtics win.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Celtics were without two starters but found a way to dominate the Knicks Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":32112,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba"],"yoast_head":"\nBREAKING: Joe Mazzulla\u2019s clever adjustment helps Boston Celtics rout Knicks - News 365<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/new365.azontree.com\/?p=32110\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"BREAKING: Joe Mazzulla\u2019s clever adjustment helps Boston Celtics rout Knicks - News 365\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Celtics were without two starters but found a way to dominate the Knicks Saturday.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/new365.azontree.com\/?p=32110\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"News 365\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-02-09T13:06:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/new365.azontree.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/PICTURE-1300-x-1500-px-7-5.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1300\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"MsNga\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"MsNga\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/new365.azontree.com\/?p=32110\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/new365.azontree.com\/?p=32110\",\"name\":\"BREAKING: Joe Mazzulla\u2019s clever adjustment helps Boston Celtics rout Knicks - 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