4 stats that defined the Pacers-Celtics matchups this season
By Ben Gibson
A 35.5 point difference between Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum when guarding Bojan Bogdanovic
Before Marcus Smart when down, he was Bojan Bogdanovic’s primary defender. Though Jayson Tatum actually covered him slightly better, Smart’s harassing defense allowed Tatum to focus his energies elsewhere at times, though he still saw plenty of Bogdanovic.
No matter which one was covering him, the Pacers go-to scorer was less effective against those two. Jaylen Brown, on the other hand, wasn’t as strong defender against Bojan according to NBA.com’s matchup data.
While Tatum made Bogdanovic nearly 12 points worse per 100 possessions, the overall effect was the Pacers were nearly 23 points worse. However, with Brown on him, Bogdanovic and the Pacers are nearly 12 points better.
So without Smart, the Celtics are forced to make some decisions to make. If they put Tatum on Bogdanovic, they can likely win that matchup, but the cascading effect goes down the lineup. Who is going to cover Wesley Matthews, who can score against Tatum or Terry Rozier?
Will Darren Collison get a more favorable and consistent matchup with Irving so Thaddeus Young can pick and roll him to death? What about finding ways to force Irving to cover Bojan more? Can Indiana isolate Gordon Hayward?
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For Boston it was simple before: Send Smart after the other team’s best non-big scorer. Now, they have to decide exactly where to have players like Tatum, Irving, Brown, and Hayward exert their energy.
Before there were easier ways to have them ease back a little in their matchups to catch their breath. Now, they’re forced to play harder for longer, and their own plans of isolating Pacers mismatches got more difficult as well.
The Smart injury doesn’t suddenly swing things in Indiana’s favor, but they’ve got the chance to get into more favorable matchups up and down the board. Smart was able to cover many of their defense’s gaps. Without him, they can’t leverage as many matchups in ways that make them clearly in Boston’s favor.
Smart could cool down many of Indiana’s players. The Celtics can still do that without him, but the matchups won’t be as favorable as they once were. And in the case of Brown or Tatum guarding Bogdanovic, the results are night and day between the two.