The Boston Celtics stunned the Philadelphia 76ers on Saturday night in one of the best games of the regular season. In the waning seconds, Jayson Tatum hit a 3-pointer to give the Celtics a 110-107 lead, which proved to be the final score after Joel Embiid’s made three-quarter court heave was ruled to have come after at the buzzer.
Down by 15 in the third quarter, the Celtics turned the game around and briefly led by double-digits in the fourth. But after Embiid led a comeback, the game was tied at 107 with 10.8 seconds remaining. The Celtics’ first attempt to find a game-winner was cut short by the Sixers using their foul to give.
That gave Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla a chance to call a timeout and draw up a different play. He decided to go with an old favorite, a sidelines out of bounds set that he’s used earlier in the season, and which he admitted postgame was stolen from Brad Stevens. Let’s take a closer look at how the Celtics were able to free up Tatum for the game-winning shot.
Most of the time in late-game situations like this one, a team will simply clear out and let their best player isolate on the perimeter. But while that’s the safest option because it usually guarantees the worst-case outcome is overtime, it rarely leads to the best looks. Even for the most gifted offensive players, it’s hard to score against a set defense that knows exactly what you want to do. The Celtics have learned as much countless times over the past few seasons. Movement, both ball and man, that gets the defense shifting and unsure of itself, is much harder to guard, as this play showed.
The play begins with Tatum deep in the backcourt, Jaylen Brown in the far corner and Marcus Smart and Al Horford near the 3-point line. This alignment spreads the floor to an incredible degree and gives the Sixers all sorts of things to worry about.
Celtics spread the floor and start with Tatum deep in the backcourt
As Derrick White gets the ball from the ref and initiates the play, Horford sprints to the opposite corner to interchange with Brown,…
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