Boston Celtics: 3 takeaways from decisive Game 3 win vs. Pacers
By Joe Hagen
2. The Death Lineup is working!
Fans of basketball have waited all season for this. In theory, this group can fit so well together it has just felt like a matter of time before there was tangible proof of this lineup working.
Granted, this lineup hasn’t accumulated a crazy amount of shared floor time, but its track record so far in the playoffs has been incredibly encouraging for fans of Boston Celtics basketball. That being said, it is still their fourth-most used lineup. Through 10 minutes of play so far, advanced stats for this unit has the group at a +42.9 net rating as well as a 65.5 true shooting percentage.
Yes, 10 minutes is not a very long time for a group of players to share a floor, but a lot of that can be explained away by circumstances in this series. This Pacers’ defense is really, really good and Boston cannot afford to keep playmakers off the floor, meaning minutes for the team’s most talented players have to be staggered.
What’s been most impressive about this group’s performance thus far in the postseason has been that all of their time on the floor has come during crunch-time. All 10 of their minutes have come in the fourth quarter, the most of any unit for Boston, and each time it has effectively put away a scrappy Pacers team.
Hopefully, this is a sign of things to come for Boston. If the Celtics can rely on their five most talented players down the stretch consistently in the playoffs, then they have to feel like that lineup can go toe-to-toe with any opponent.