Derrick White Pinpoints Celtics’ Biggest Issue After Heat Win

The Boston Celtics snapped their two-game losing streak on Friday, Dec. 19, beating the Miami Heat 129-116. Joe Mazzulla’s team showcased strong defense to limit Miami’s high-octane offensive approach, holding the Heat to 39.2% shooting from the field.

Nevertheless, Miami generated significantly more shot attempts than Boston throughout the night. Erik Spoelstra’s team let the ball fly on 102 occasions, 20 more than the Celtics.

During his postgame news conference, Derrick White shared his thoughts on how Boston can limit teams from creating such a large shot disparity in the future. The veteran guard pinpointed one key area that the Celtics must improve moving forward.

“I mean, we have to rebound better,” White said, via CLNS Media. “It killed us on the glass. That’s obviously a big point of emphasis for us. There are obviously other ways of creating turnovers that can kind of get you back into the shot margin. I think when you are getting beat like that, it helps if you make a lot of threes in the fourth quarter, but we are just trying to compete, use our speed. Obviously, we are smaller than them out there, but five guys committed to rebounding and using the speed we have helps.”

The Celtics only lost the rebounding battle by one board on Friday. However, given the Heat’s additional 20 attempts, Boston should have dominated in that category. Holding teams to single-shot offensive possessions has to become part of the Celtics’ defensive identity.

Boston currently ranks 20th in the NBA for rebounds per game, averaging 43.5 per night. They’re 25th in defensive rebounding, averaging 31 boards per game. However, they’re 7th in offensive rebounding, averaging 12.5 per game.

Following Brad Stevens’ moves this summer, the Celtics are in the first year of a retooling process. There are multiple young players on the roster, all of whom are learning and improving on the fly.

The rebounding issues will likely continue until Stevens adds another big man to the rotation. However, there is certainly room for improvement from the current squad, and that should remain an area of focus.