acquiring Nikola Vu\u010devi\u0107 before the trade deadline<\/a>. Boston shot just 37 percent from the field, including 17.1 percent on 3-point attempts.<\/p>\n\u201cWe got to figure out the chemistry a little bit, the flow a little bit,\u201d Brown said. \u201cWe want Vuc to be a little bit more aggressive, looking for him to get going and make him feel confident in taking those shots and where he can catch the ball. I think he\u2019s still learning, but we need him to be aggressive. So we\u2019ll make adjustments, we\u2019ll communicate, we\u2019ll watch film, and we\u2019ll be better for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Vu\u010devi\u0107 trade has brought on other changes for the Celtics rotation. Payton Pritchard has come off the bench in every game since the team sent Anfernee Simons to the Chicago Bulls as part of the deal. In each of the last three games, Mazzulla has started a big lineup with Neemias Queta and Luka Garza alongside each other. That duo had only played three minutes together all season before this stretch, but Mazzulla wants to work in bigger lineups now that he has another strong frontcourt option in Vu\u010devi\u0107.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe same as we\u2019ve done (with the starting lineup) the whole year,\u201d Mazzulla said. \u201cWe\u2019ve tinkered with it all year. I think we\u2019re up to 15 or 17 different ones, so nothing\u2019s changed. Everybody on our roster has a chance to impact winning. We have a chance to develop, do different things there, so whether before or after the trade deadline, nothing changes in our approach.\u201d<\/p>\n
Knicks coach Mike Brown believes the lineup flexibility Vucevic provides will be useful.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to help them a lot,\u201d Brown said. \u201cThey\u2019ve got three big guys now, so they can match up a lot of different ways with a lot of different opponents.\u201d<\/p>\n
That might be the case, but the Celtics still need to figure out how to incorporate a style they hadn\u2019t even experimented with much before. For the second straight game, they had a slow offensive start. They shot just 34.6 percent from the field in the first quarter while missing 11 of their 13 3-point attempts.<\/p>\n
With the rotation changes, the Celtics\u2019 second-ranked offense could need time to readjust.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re playing a little different,\u201d said Derrick White. \u201cObviously got some new guys in new spots, so I wouldn\u2019t say we\u2019re as crisp as we were maybe a few weeks ago when we\u2019d had the offseason and beginning of the year to kind of figure those parts out. But I think it\u2019s exciting that we can continue to learn, grow and just understand it\u2019s gonna take day by day, and get guys comfortable, get guys in the right spots. And we\u2019ve got a lot of guys that know how to play, so I think we\u2019ll pick it up quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scheierman had a productive outing with 10 points, 13 rebounds and five assists. But even he shot just 2 for 7 behind the arc \u2014 and he was one of the better Celtics shooters on the day. The rest of the starters combined to shoot 3-for-16 from 3. The bench combined to shoot 10-for-29 from the field, including 2-for-18 from downtown.<\/p>\n
White said his team needs to learn how to adapt to new defensive coverages.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, you get guarded many different ways, and adding Vuc, you\u2019ve got a whole different way people are guarding him,\u201d White said. \u201cSo you want to break down those scenarios, but you also want to kind of be free, not think out there and kind of react. So you\u2019ve got to find that balance of watching the film coming in, working on different scenarios, and you\u2019ve also got to let people kind of figure it out on their own. So it\u2019s kind of tough on the fly, but we\u2019re two, three games in.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the lead-up to the game, Brown didn\u2019t hide the importance of the showdown with the Knicks. He brought it up himself Friday night when discussing the TD Garden environment for Vu\u010devi\u0107\u2019s Celtics debut.<\/p>\n
\u201cSunday is going to be a big matchup,\u201d Brown said. \u201cSo we need the fans to have the same energy. So I\u2019m looking forward to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even with that much excitement beforehand, Brown was level-headed after the defeat.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt came down to the offensive end, where we just had to make some shots,\u201d Brown said. \u201cScoring 89 points (is) not gonna get it done. We gotta figure out how to put that ball in the cup.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOSTON \u2014 The Boston Celtics had one last chance to seize momentum early in the fourth quarter of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":458149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[2242,355,361,99],"class_list":["post-458148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-boston-celtics","tag-nba","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=458148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/458149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}