Dennis Schröder hardly noticed the man in front of him. Portland had defenders in his face, but they weren’t doing much to bother him. His objective was to mess around with the man behind them, Blazers center Jusuf Nurkić.
The Celtics were trying to inbound the ball out of the corner up nine, running a tangled version of their stack play for Jayson Tatum. He stands on the free-throw line, the bigs set screens so he can pop out to the perimeter, then attack from there.
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Nurkić is sitting underneath the play, watching and waiting for something to happen as Schröder is casually walking with the ball toward where Tatum is about to curl. But while Nurkić is watching Tatum, Schröder is watching Nurkić’s eyes, making sure they are fixated on the decoy star. Then as soon as Tatum flares out of the action and Nurkić starts leaning his way, Schröder is gone.
Schröder has brought an element of speed Boston hasn’t had much of recently, accelerating past his defender every time he sees the lane open. As the season goes on, he’s getting a better feel for where his screeners are coming from and how he can catch the defense off guard.
Whoever the Blazers put on him was generally too slow to catch up if he got a head start, so Schröder tried to get a lot of his points by looking for windows when the rim protection abandoned its post and then hit the gas.
Schröder has his eye on Nurkić sitting in the pivot, knowing his coverage is going to have him start to come up if Enes Kanter Freedom sets a screen. Since Freedom is over on the weak side, the scheme tells Nurkić to go sit on the other side of the screen since Schröder presumably would dribble over it.
Schröder gives Freedom a look to let him know he’s going to take off and Freedom knows he needs to fake like he’s running into the screen to sell it to Nurkić. Freedom almost false starts, but times it perfectly so Schröder can beat Nurkić to the rim and then crashes the glass to clean up Nurkić’s impressive block. It’s a perfect example of how pace can mean more than just pushing in transition, but even moving with purpose when executing in the half court.
“The pace, that’s the first thing we started to talk about going on this road trip was increasing the pace,” Udoka said. “With Jaylen (Brown) out we have two guards who can really push it, and quick decisions is what we always preach to Jayson and those guys when we’re getting off the ball. And when shots start to fall those numbers are always going to change.”
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The Blazers started the quarter trapping Schröder as he got the ball past them, and Boston’s offense swung the ball to find shots. So they reverted back to a slightly safer up-to-touch coverage with Nurkić — having him sit within reach of the screen as Schröder drove over it. When they were in that traditional up-to-touch coverage, Nurkić would have to leave the restricted circle to corral the screen, forcing another Blazer to help in the paint.
The problem with up-to-touch coverage against Schröder is that it doesn’t make sense with the way Blazers coach Chauncey Billups wanted to pressure the point guard. This scheme’s main purpose is to slow down a pull-up threat ballhandler while his defender is chasing him from behind after going over the screen. It allows the point guard defender to pressure them into the midrange area, while the big is close enough to loosely corral the ball in the midrange.
But Billups had the Blazers guards going under the screens on Schröder, meaning Nurkić being up-to-touch was almost getting in the way of his teammate trying to navigate his way under the screens to get back in front of Schröder. Nurkić was moving so slowly, bringing him out of the paint turned him into a turnstile.
Nurkić looks more like he’s guarding his teammate Ben McLemore more than the Celtics on this play. He seems so fixated on getting a touch on the screen to fulfill his coverage that he is standing outside the lane — making it easy for Schröder to blow by McLemore.
“I just try to be aggressive, even if they go under, I can attack it sometimes, good angles, and I think we did a great job,” Schröder said. “The bigs setting screens even if they went under. We did great.”
By the time Schröder checked out of the quarter, the lead had grown from three to 16 points over the period and the second unit would blow it open soon thereafter. This was a crucial example of another Boston player outside of Tatum and Brown showing they can manipulate the defense on their own over an extended run.
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It’s evidence of how the team can spread isolation around and make the defense have to figure something out they haven’t worked on much in shootaround. Schröder finished with 31 points, eight assists, and one turnover, the kind of complete performance the Celtics need with Brown out.
“He’s a guy that can get to the basket pretty much on anybody, teams are going under on him, so he made five 3s tonight,” Udoka said. “We constantly stressed to everybody isolation is not always for yourself, it’s for your teammate as well, especially if you can penetrate and create and so he did that tonight.”
Boston is getting more out of their second point guard, who has proven to be more than just a short-term sparkplug off the bench so far. They’ve rarely been fully healthy, so they haven’t had a chance to see much of how it all balances out when their three isolation scorers are rotating in and out throughout the game. But after several weeks of getting the defense locked down, this west coast trip is looking like a chance for them to figure out the other side of the ball and Schröder is becoming an increasingly larger part of that.
(Photo: Sam Forencich / NBAE via Getty Images)
Jared Weiss is a staff writer covering the Boston Celtics and NBA for The Athletic. He has covered the Celtics since 2011, co-founding CLNS Media Network while in college before covering the team for SB Nation's CelticsBlog and USA Today. Before coming to The Athletic, Weiss spent a decade working for the government, primarily as a compliance bank regulator. Follow Jared on Twitter @JaredWeissNBA
