The Celtics lineup combination of Crowder, Smart, and Brown is starting to pay dividends.

In the tail end of the first quarter of the Celtics game against the Cavaliers on Thursday, Brad Stevens rolled out a lineup that included all three of Marcus Smart, Jae Crowder, and Jaylen Brown. The seven minutes they played together brought the season total for the trio up to 119, a number that falls short of even the top 50 three-man combinations Boston has played to date, and while their time together has been brief, it has been highly productive.

For the year, lineups featuring the Smart, Crowder, Brown combination are outscoring opponents by 12.3 points per 100 possessions. Clearly the sample size here is too small to draw any firm conclusions, but that mark would rate out as best in the league, and the effectiveness of the trio is enough to be intriguing. It’s based in versatility.

Smart, Crowder, and Brown are Boston’s three most malleable defenders. They’re all quick enough and strong enough to guard any position but center with relative credibility, which allows them to switch any pick and rolls in which two of the three are involved. That strategy comes a bit less tenable if Isaiah Thomas is also on the court. Opponents will attack him on defense, but very few teams have four players that can function as the ball handler in the pick and roll, and Boston can and will hide him as best as possible (they did so fairly effectively against Cleveland by putting him on Kyle Korver).

That’s what Golden State does with Steph Curry when they play their “death lineup,” and really the principles of what make the Smart, Crowder, Brown lineups so valuable are the same as the Warriors small ball units. Boston lacks the elite level of offensive talent Golden State brings, and they don’t have anyone that is nearly as effective a help defender as Draymond Green, but the concept of positional fungibility is an asset nonetheless. Logically that makes sense for Boston on the defensive end of the court. Smart, Crowder, and to a lesser degree Brown have always been defense first players, and you can see their versatility on display more visibly on that end of the court, but it’s actually on offense where they’re having the greatest impact.

Lineups including the Smart, Crowder, Brown triumvirate are scoring 117.3 points per 100 possessions. None are particularly brilliant creators, but all three are credible attacking scrambling defenses off the dribble, and at least one is almost guaranteed to be covered by a slower power forward. Drop in an offensive dynamo like Thomas, or even just enough ball movement, and eventually defenses will show enough cracks that any of the three can exploit. Smart and Brown have been inconsistent shooting the ball, and that keeps units featuring them from being truly terrifying, but if Brown can continue his post-All-Star break uptick from three, then there might really be something here. Even if he doesn’t, Boston can grease the skids by playing a shooter like Al Horford or Kelly Olynyk as the token big.

The Celtics likely can’t afford to play the Smart, Crowder, Brown pairing big minutes during the regular season. All three are willing to bang with bigs down low, but that’s hard work and it takes a physical toll over time. Stevens is right to test things like this out in small doses. Versatility is critical to all of the NBA’s best teams’ success, and having some positional flexibility is paramount against Boston’s biggest in-conference rivals in Cleveland. Smart, Crowder, and Brown are putting off enough smoke of productive, fungible basketball to try to figure out if there is fire. Don’t be surprised if you see more of them.