BOSTON - When the Celtics and Pacers met earlier this month, Tyler Zeller shot 8-for-10 for 18 points in a win.
In Wednesday's 100-87 win against those same Pacers, he shot 8-for-9 for 19 points.
So what he said after that game made a lot of sense: "We need to play them more often."
But in all seriousness, Zeller and the Celtics do provide issues for the Pacers, who are forced to guard them all out on the edge. That's especially the case for a big man like Zeller, who is becoming more comfortable from the outside, forcing defenders - Roy Hibbert in this case - to chase him out there and open things up down low.
The Celtics scored 42 points in the paint tonight by forcing players like Hibbert away from the basket and finding openings.
"I guess the matchups work out well for me," Zeller said. I was able to pick and pop the first time. I knew they were going to change and not let me do that so I tried to dive a little more today, and it worked out well for us."
Zeller was hot from the start, providing 11 of the Celtics 22 first-quarter points. In fact, at one point in the first quarter he had 11 points while the entire Pacers team had 10.
Boston Celtics
The same can't be said for Hibbert, who struggled from start to finish, scoring just seven points and grabbing three rebounds.
At one point in the game, Hibbert could do nothing but shake his head as Zeller hit another jump shot on him.
"He's always been known to take a way a lot of guards layups, so if I can pull him away from the basket it helps them a lot," Zeller said. "But also, putting him in close-outs, laterally I felt like I could beat him off the dribble so I wanted to put him in those, too."
Zeller is the team's only real true center. But as we saw once again Wednesday night, he's more mobile than other centers in the NBA, and Brad Stevens utilizes the skills of his players better than just about anybody.
"His roles are really important," Stevens said of Zeller, "the way he runs the floor is really important, he’s got great hands, he’s got that little flip shot that he’s very good with. And today we were fortunate because I felt like Tyler gave us one kind of effectiveness against them, and then Kelly [Olynyk] gave us a whole different kind of effectiveness against him. And both were very effective.”