The Boston Celtics opened up their offseason by making two moves that highly impacted the core group in trading away Marcus Smart (Grizzlies) and Grant Williams (Mavericks).

Not only were Smart and Williams the team’s best defenders, but they were also the only bulldogs on Boston’s roster, leaving the Celtics without a player with backbone on the court.

Boston thrived in a switching defensive scheme two years ago that landed them in the NBA Finals and saw Smart winning Defensive Player of the Year for the 2021-22 season.

The focus changed from defense to offense for the Celtics under new head coach Joe Mazzulla last season. Mazzulla-ball is all about offensive metrics and shooting as many 3-pointers as possible — there were 13 games with 50+ 3-point attempts last season. 

We saw that defense might not matter as much in the regular season as it does in the playoffs for this team. That said, if Summer League is any indicator of what a team intends to do, then the Celtics will be running a more zone based defense rather than switching. 

A less strenuous workload on the defensive end in a zone defensive scheme will conciliate players on that end of the court, more specifically Sam Hauser who’s role as a wing depth shooter should increase this season without Smart and Williams on the team. 

That said, Hauser needs to be more comfortable on the defensive end if he’s going to be on the court more and running a zone defense could prove to do that.

For what it’s worth, Hauser isn’t terrible on defense and the numbers at the end of the regular season reflect that as he became one of the better isolation defenders for the Celtics last season.

At the beginning of March, opposing offense switch hunted Hauser on 21 percent of possessions which was the highest percentage in the NBA. So teams literally thought targeting Hauser on defense would benefit them, but they were wrong. 

Teams that targeted Hauser in isolation would only score 0.96 points per possession, which amounts to the worst ranked offense in the NBA. Keep in mind, this is a metric from an iso-switch and it leads down a path to show that in a less complex zone defense that Hauser will be just as good or better.

He finished last season with 0.92 points per possession when targeted in isolation defense, which he ranked third in at an 18.9 percent clip.

Hauser is 6-foot-8 and learned how to maneuver himself around the court well to accommodate the switching style of defense and he proved that he can be a quality defender for this team.

He’s able to slide around and stay in front of ball handlers and anticipate what an opponent is trying to do to him due to Hauser being such a great offensive player of his own.

In the clip below, Hauser stays step-for-step with Darius Garland who is trying to break his ankles in the paint, but Hauser doesn’t take the bait.

In January, Jayson Tatum expressed how great of a basketball player Hauser is:

“He’s so much more than just a shooter, so I really enjoy when he just makes those basketball plays. I don’t want to box him in as just a catch-and-shoot guy. Sam’s a really, really talented basketball player.”

Hauser will likely play a key role for Boston one way or another this year considering how the offseason has gone for the Celtics this summer. He’s top heavy, which allows him to absorb contact on the defensive end. Don’t be surprised when you see Hauser hold his own defensively in a less complex zone defense.

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Photo Credit: Dale Zanine, USA TODAY Sports