Luke Kornet’s career year punctuated in win over Spurs

Luke Kornet is having the best season of his career.

Entering Saturday night’s 121-111 Celtics win over the San Antonio Spurs, Kornet was averaging 5.1 points and a career high 5.4 rebounds. In the win over the Spurs, he scored 15 points and grabbed 16 rebounds, including seven on the offensive glass.

His rebounding has been outstanding this season, and his hustle and lack of care for his body has been a big part of that. He told NBC Sports Boston’s Abby Chin after the game, “start caring less about yourself physically and just launching yourself into the trenches. I feel like I’m a left guard basically of basketball, so I try to take pride in that. Protect my guys and force those kind of things.”

Kornet’s offensive rebounding has been a huge key for Boston this season; the Celtics offensive rebounding percentage jumps from 25% when Kornet is off the court to 33% when Kornet is on the court this season. Their 2nd chance points per 100 possessions jumps from 12.6 to 18.1 with Luke on the floor.

He is the best offensive rebounder on the team and his rim protection stats have been awesome as well.

With Kornet on the court, the Celtics have given up 61% to teams at the rim; when Kornet is off the court, Boston gives up 66% at the rim. 66% at the rim is still very good but with Kornet in the game this season, the Celtics have the best rim protection in the league.

He was asked by CelticsBlog’s Not Dalzell after the game about his physicality and how he has changed as a player throughout his career. He said, “I used to definitely see the game a certain way, and a now kind of just like looking at it through different lens. One just always physically bringing the energy and seeking the contact and initiating contact.”

His connection with Jayson Tatum has also been great this season. In the minutes that Tatum has played without Kornet this season, the Celtics have a net rating of +7.1. With Kornet and Tatum on the court, the Celtics net rating doubles to +14.5.

That chemistry was on display yet again on Saturday night.

Tatum just makes the right play here. He sees that all of the Spurs eyes are on him and throws a no-look lob to Luke who was ready for it to come.

On this play, Tatum sets the screen from Jrue Holiday, who also had an awesome game on Saturday night, and attracts multiple defenders on his roll to the rim. Big Luke sees this and makes a great pass to Baylor Scheierman who drains the three.

It wasn’t all perfect from Kornet on Saturday night. The Spurs did a good job of seeking him out on switches and making the Celtics pay.

Chris Paul did a great job of this, taking advantage of Luke on multiple occasions.

He also missed a couple of chippies around the basket, all three of his misses were on layup attempts.

He needs to convert on these attempts around the rim in the playoffs.

However, those mistakes around the rim and Chris Paul beating him off the dribble do not take away from the big night and big season Kornet had and is having. He has been awesome for the Celtics and re-signing him has been a bigger deal than anyone could have imagined.