How should the Wizards defend the Celtics in Game 6?

With their 123-101 win in Game 5, the Boston Celtics took control of their series against the Washington Wizards and moved within one game of squaring-off with the defending champion Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Finals. The Celtics are the No. 1 seed and they were playing at home, so their winning the game was not exactly unexpected — even if they did get blown off the floor in Games 3 and 4 at Washington.

What was at least somewhat unexpected was the way they went about their win. Game 5 was just the 14th time that Isaiah Thomas scored 20 points or fewer in a game this season. The Celtics were 6-7 in the previous 13 games before evening their record with this most recent win.(It was also only their third win of the year when he scored less than 20 and played at least 30 minutes. The Celtics were 2-5 in such games heading in.) Boston had a 59-27 overall record with Thomas on the court this season heading into Game 5, which means they were 53-20 when he scored 21 or more in a game. In other words, their winning percentage when Thomas topped 20 points was 0.726, while it was just 0.462 when he scored 20 or less. So, coming away with a victory when he finished with 18 points was at least somewhat unusual.

What made it even more unusual was that the Wizards forced the Celtics to win that way. Isaiah didn’t just come out there and play poorly. On the contrary, he got his 18 points on only 13 shots, and he registered 9 assists as well. It’s just that the Wizards seemingly decided that getting beat by literally anyone other than Isaiah was the only way they were willing to lose. They sent double- and triple-teams at Thomas every time he ventured into the lane, helping from all over the place, so the Celts actually took the ball out of his hands for a decent amount of the time and let Al Horford, Marcus Smart, Avery Bradley, and Terry Rozier take more control of the offense.

Read More: Is Isaiah Thomas the best inch-for-inch player in the NBA?

Isaiah averaged 84.6 touches per game during the regular season, per the SportVU data on NBA.com, along with 6.7 minutes of possession per game. That means the ball was in his hands approximately 19.8 percent of the time he was on the floor. During the playoffs, he was averaging fewer touches (81.5) per game, but more time of possession. He had the ball in his hands for 7.4 of the 35.2 minutes per game he was averaging through Game 4 against the Wiz. That means he had possession of the basketball approximately 21.0 percent of the time he was on the floor heading into Game 5.

Isaiah played 34 minutes and 33 seconds in Game 5, but touched the ball just 64 times and possessed it for only 6.3 minutes. His time of possession share went down to 18.2 percent of the time he spent on the floor.

The way the Wiz defended forced the Celtics to shift some of their ball-handling responsibility away from the typical point of attack. Take a look at the following chart, which shows the time of possession and average time per touch for the Celtics’ five most-common ball-handlers during the regular season, the playoffs through Game 4, and Game 5.

Horford, Smart, and Bradley all had the ball more, and held it for longer while they had control of it, than they did during either the regular season or the playoffs prior to Game 5, while the opposite was true for both Thomas and Rozier.

In other words, the Wizards’ “We Will Let Anyone OTHER THAN Isaiah Thomas Beat Us” defense forced the Celtics into offensive burden-sharing… and it worked. Washington got exactly what they wanted. It’s just that the Other Guys all stepped up with big performances to help out the Little Guy.

Horford played one of the best games of his career and tallied 19 points, 6 rebounds, and 7 assists. Bradley dropped 25 in the first half, ended up with 29 for the game, and chipped in 6 boards and 3 assists as well. Smart went for 9 points, 11 rebounds, and 6 dimes. Rozier didn’t fill up the box score but ran the offense capably and defended well. Jaylen Brown didn’t score and looked lost at times, but put in a rather good effort on defense for the most part. Jae Crowder poured in 18 points and snagged 8 rebounds. Amir Johnson, making a surprise start, played a big role in the Celtics’ game-opening run that put the lead in the bank before the Wizards could even catch their breath.

Though it didn’t work out in Game 5, the Wizards should go right back to the same strategy in Game 6 and make the C’s prove they can do it again — this time in the Verizon Center. Much like Washington, Boston was a very different team at home than on the road this season, with a 0.732 winning percentage at TD Garden and a 0.562 winning percentage everywhere else. They won all three games in Chicago during the first round, but got blasted by a combined 46 points across Games 3 and 4 of this series.

As you’ve heard over and over during playoff TV broadcasts, role players typically aren’t quite as good on the road as they are at home. The Celtics’ role guys aren’t immune from that — and they’re not the only ones. Isaiah has had his share of road struggles during this postseason as well. He’s averaging 30.2 points on 48-34-83 shooting at home during the playoffs compared to 18.6 on 43-29-79 in away games.

Devoting extra resources to shutting him down is no guarantee you’ll actually be able to stop him, but there’s a reason it’s such a common playoff strategy against teams whose offense is so dependent on one player. It works more often than not. The Wizards shouldn’t get discouraged by one result going the opposite way, just as coaches employing the hack-a-whoever strategy shouldn’t stop just because [bad free-throw shooter X] makes both on the first go-round.

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Playing the numbers game is about tipping the odds in your favor over the long haul. It’s of course possible that the Celtics’ other guys step up again and end the series in six games, making the long haul disappear. But making the Celtics find a way to win without Isaiah controlling the flow has been the best strategy for beating them all year. If the Celtics pull it off it twice in two games, at some point you just have to tip your hat.