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DraftKings Post-Ups: Celtics Acknowledge Whiteside's Impact

Marc D'Amico
Team Reporter and Analyst

Monday, November 30 - Celtics at Heat

Pregame - Celtics Understand Whiteside's Impact in the Paint

MIAMI – There are plenty of good players on Boston’s roster. None of them, however, are Superman.

In other words, they can’t leap tall buildings in a single bound, and they must understand that fact tonight.

A man who looks like a tall building will be standing in front of the C’s basket all night long. His name his Hassan Whiteside, and he stands in at 7-feet, 265 pounds.

Whiteside burst onto the NBA scene last season with a hot streak and has been even better this season, garnering talk of an All-Star berth. He leads the NBA by a landslide in blocks per game with a ridiculous average of 4.8 swats, an average that has clearly drawn the attention of opponents like Boston.

“He’s just so much bigger and longer than everybody else,” Brad Stevens said prior to tonight’s matchup with Miami. “He just has a humungous impact at the rim. I don’t know how else to say it. He challenges everything.”

Pure centers like Andre Drummond, DeAndre Jordan and Dwight Howard can challenge a guy like Whiteside with their size. Super-athletes like LeBron James, Russell Westbrook and Paul George can challenge Whiteside with their athleticism. The problem for Boston is that it doesn’t have anyone on its roster who stacks up well against Miami’s 7-footer.

No player who is currently in the Celtics’ rotation, outside of perimeter-oriented Kelly Olynyk, stands in taller than 6-foot-10. The team’s top interior scorer, Isaiah Thomas, who scores an average of 7.4 points in the paint per game, is only 5-foot-9.

Clearly, the C’s will be at a disadvantage in the paint against Whiteside. They’ll need to find a way to negate his shot-blocking skills, and Stevens has an idea of how to make that happen.

“We have to try to bring him out on the floor some,” Stevens said, meaning that Boston must draw him away from the basket. “That’s easier said than done.

“I think shot-making from the perimeter is awfully important against this team. If you don’t make shots from the perimeter and he can just stay down there, it’s going to be a long night.”

Stevens also hinted that he may get creative in his approach of drawing Whiteside away from the hoop. He may go with a smaller or more athletic lineup than normal, potentially using guys like Jae Crowder, Jonas Jerebko or Olynyk at center to make Whiteside chase them around the floor, rather than allow him to hang around the paint against traditional bigs.

Even that might not work, as Stevens indicated. If it doesn’t, Whiteside will be standing near Boston’s basket ready to swat any shot that leaves a C’s player’s hand from inside of 10 feet.

“If he’s standing down there,” Stevens said before pausing and shaking his head, “it’s hard to score. I mean, nobody scores on him in the league down there.”

Stevens took it a step further, indicating that you’d have to be Superman to score over Whiteside.

“If he’s standing down there,” he added, “not many human beings are going to score.”

Unfortunately, the Celtics are constructed only of human beings, so they’ll likely need to find a route other than interior scoring to put the ball through the basket tonight in Miami.

- Marc D'Amico