Luke Kornet is having the perfect season of his profession.
Getting into Saturday evening’s 121-111 Celtics win over the San Antonio Spurs, Kornet was averaging 5.1 factors and a profession excessive 5.4 rebounds. Within the win over the Spurs, he scored 15 factors and grabbed 16 rebounds, together with seven on the offensive glass.
His rebounding has been excellent this season, and his hustle and lack of take care of his physique has been an enormous a part of that. He advised NBC Sports activities Boston’s Abby Chin after the sport, “begin caring much less about your self bodily and simply launching your self into the trenches. I really feel like I’m a left guard principally of basketball, so I attempt to take pleasure in that. Defend my guys and drive these type of issues.”
Kornet’s offensive rebounding has been an enormous key for Boston this season; the Celtics offensive rebounding proportion jumps from 25% when Kornet is off the courtroom to 33% when Kornet is on the courtroom this season. Their 2nd likelihood factors per 100 possessions jumps from 12.6 to 18.1 with Luke on the ground.
He’s the perfect offensive rebounder on the staff and his rim safety stats have been superior as nicely.
With Kornet on the courtroom, the Celtics have given up 61% to groups on the rim; when Kornet is off the courtroom, Boston provides up 66% on the rim. 66% on the rim continues to be excellent however with Kornet within the recreation this season, the Celtics have the perfect rim safety within the league.
He was requested by CelticsBlog’s Not Dalzell after the sport about his physicality and the way he has modified as a participant all through his profession. He stated, “I used to undoubtedly see the sport a sure method, and a now type of similar to taking a look at it by totally different lens. One simply all the time bodily bringing the power and in search of the contact and initiating contact.”
Requested Luke Kornet (16 rebounds tonight) about what the method of changing into way more bodily has seemed like.
He stated a variety of it was within the weight room and dealing with coaches like Amile Jefferson — in addition to a mindset shift:
“Loads of it for me was only a transition in… pic.twitter.com/Gv9zqELnva
— Noa Dalzell (@NoaDalzell) March 30, 2025
His reference to Jayson Tatum has additionally been nice this season. Within the minutes that Tatum has performed with out Kornet this season, the Celtics have a web score of +7.1. With Kornet and Tatum on the courtroom, the Celtics web score doubles to +14.5.
That chemistry was on show but once more on Saturday evening.
Tatum simply makes the appropriate play right here. He sees that all the Spurs eyes are on him and throws a no-look lob to Luke who was prepared for it to come back.
On this play, Tatum units the display screen from Jrue Vacation, who additionally had an superior recreation on Saturday evening, and attracts a number of defenders on his roll to the rim. Large Luke sees this and makes an awesome cross to Baylor Scheierman who drains the three.
It wasn’t all excellent from Kornet on Saturday evening. The Spurs did an excellent job of in search of him out on switches and making the Celtics pay.
Chris Paul did an awesome job of this, profiting from Luke on a number of events.
He additionally missed a few chippies across the basket, all three of his misses have been on layup makes an attempt.
He must convert on these makes an attempt across the rim within the playoffs.
Nonetheless, these errors across the rim and Chris Paul beating him off the dribble don’t take away from the massive evening and large season Kornet had and is having. He has been superior for the Celtics and re-signing him has been an even bigger deal than anybody may have imagined.
