Eddie House breaks down Celtics’ late defensive miscues vs. Rockets

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Eddie House breaks down Celtics’ late defensive miscues vs. Rockets originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

The Boston Celtics scored twice in the final 11 seconds of Monday’s thriller against the Houston Rockets at TD Garden. But their defense couldn’t hold up its end of the bargain.

Houston got wide-open shots on two consecutive possessions in the closing seconds: an Alperen Sengun dunk after a blown defensive coverage by Boston and an Amen Thompson floater with 0.7 seconds remaining that was the dagger in Boston’s 114-112 loss. (Check out the final sequence below.)

Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla took full accountability for Boston’s defensive miscues on the final two possessions.

“They start with me,” Mazzulla told NBC Sports Boston’s Abby Chin after the game. “That’s on me as a coach not having the matchups right, not putting our guys in the best situation to execute the last two plays. So that one falls on me, 100 percent.”

So, what exactly did go wrong on defense on those two blown coverages? Ex-Celtics guard and 2008 NBA champion Eddie House believed Mazzulla’s plan on the Thompson game-winner was to have Jaylen Brown initially guard Jalen Green and Luke Kornet guard Amen Thompson, then have Brown switch onto Thompson to get their preferred matchup.

“I think (Mazzulla) was trying to think ahead of the other team,” House said on NBC Sports Boston’s Celtics Postgame Live, as seen in the video player above. “And knowing that we were gonna be switching, putting Luke in a position to where Jalen Green was gonna be coming off of the dribble hand-off with Thompson and Jaylen could switch to him.

“There was confusion, because it’s all split-second decisions. And if you’re on the sideline yelling that while the ref is getting ready to (resume play) and I’m already guarding you, and now I’ve got to run (to switch), and now we’re pointing fingers. You can see that on that last play.”

Brown and Kornet appeared to make their switch too late, and Thompson took advantage of Brown being on his heels to create space for the game-winning floater.

“Luke is like, ‘Hey, we’re…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/eddie-house-breaks-down-celtics-100329713.html

Author : NBC Sports Boston

Publish date : 2025-01-28 10:03:00

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