Before the game, JJ Redick mentioned he was happy to give up the contested two, even in the case of a mismatch. This meant the Lakers were willing to leave a guard one-on-one against Kristaps Porzingis in the post and live with the results.
As a result, the Celtics spammed post-ups with the Latvian big man to start the game. Porzingis scored 11 points from 8 attempts, even generating an assist for Derrick White. The overall efficiency was impressive. It seemed like the JJ Redick strategy wasn’t working.
However, this approach also created a very predictable offense.