A win over the Toronto Raptors on Friday night gave the Boston Celtics their fifth straight win. It was also the team’s second straight in-season tournament W, putting them atop of East Group C. There are two more games to play at the group stage; if the Celtics remain top, they progress onto the next round.

However, the game wasn’t without controversy. Multiple players found the court to be slippery, leading to falls, slides, bumps, and bruises. Jaylen Brown looked like he hurt himself at one point, too. Nevertheless, the Celtics ground out another win in a physical game.

Beyond the court and the shooting struggles, this was a fast-paced game with a lots of read-and-react offense. Not many set plays were run, and I need a third watch to pick up on some of the cat-and-mouse games both teams played. So, I’ve tried to keep the takeaways fun with a hint of nerdiness in them

Let’s dive in.

#1 Overcoming struggles from deep

Jayson Tatum went 1-of-11 from deep. Kristaps Porzingis was 0-of-3. When two of a team’s best perimeter scorers are ice-cold, it can lead to some offensive struggles. In years past, those misses would have been contagious. Poor shooting would have gone viral throughout the rotation. Not this season, though.

Boston has too many scorers. They’re attacking every level of the court. In return, individual shooting struggles can’t derail their offense like they did last season. They also appeared to lean into paint touches to generate threes when the roster was on a cold streak, forcing defensive collapses before kicking it out for open looks.

Take the above play, for example. The Raptors surged in the third quarter. Boston’s shot wasn’t falling at the rate we would have hoped. So, Al Horford goes back to the fundamentals. He attacks a close-out off the dribble, gets into the paint, draws a defender, and finds an open Derrick White. The defense had to react. Horford can post you up, he can hit floaters, and he reads the floor as well as anyone.

Good process has become a hallmark of the Celtics offense to begin the season, regardless of whether shots are falling or not.

#2 Speaking of threes

Can we just take a moment to appreciate how much scoring talent the Celtics have? White, Jaylen Brown, Sam Hauser (who is shooting 45.2% from deep,) and Horford all hit three of their perimeter jumpers. Jrue Holiday had two.

That’s 33 points, despite two of your top-three players shooting under a combined 10% from three-point range. Luxury doesn’t begin to describe how well-constructed this season’s roster is. Kudos to Brad Stevens. Serious

#3 Gettin’ nerdy with it: “Wheel”

Yes, “Gettin’ nerdy with it” is back. I like the whimsicality of the name. For our first nerdy segment, we’re looking at a play called “wheel.” Like most actions, there are a series of how it can be run, and coaches have three or four options they like to cycle through. In this instance, Joe Mazzulla drew it up to leverage the scoring gravity of Tatum to create a gap for Brown to attack off the drive.

The play is designed like this: The Celtics set a weakside stagger screen for Tatum, who curls over both screens and relocates to the strongside corner. While this is happening, Brown is cutting strongside to weakside across the baseline.

Brown then gets a pin-in screen from Holiday, locking down two defenders and creating some space. White has passed to Porzingis, who then hand-off to Brown and finishes the stagger screening action, creating more space between Brown and his defender. Porzingis rolls to the rim to engage Jakob Poeltel, who is in drop. Dennis Schroder is looking to get a high tag, too.