Preseason —> regular season: three stats to boost Mazzulla Ball

Ten Celtics will average over 15 minutes a game.

Somewhere on some laptop at the Auerbach Center, there is biometric data on every Celtic player. It’s got all of Jayson Tatum’s, Derrick White’s, and Jrue Holiday’s minutes from the start of the regular season through the playoffs and their stints with Team USA added up. It told them to sit Al Horford until the final preseason game. And it has progression profiles to map out optimal usage rates from now until hopefully June.

The Celtics brought back nearly everybody from last year’s championship run. They’ll be able to build on that continuity and that familiarity will breed confidence. We’re already seeing that in the readiness of Luke Kornet…