With 6:08 remaining within the third quarter of Friday’s sport, Al Horford sank a pair of free throws to place the Boston Celtics up 30 factors over the visiting Indiana Pacers, 87-57. That’s proper, the Pacers had simply 57 factors by two-and-half quarters and solely wound up with solely 105 on the finish of the night time.
Boston entered the matchup after two straight days of continuous criticism. They dropped a really winnable sport on Christmas Day, falling 118-114 to the “rival” Philadelphia 76ers. It was a day the place many felt that lapses in focus and depth served because the Achilles heal for the Cs, together with Jayson Tatum.
“We bought to look within the mirror and man up,” he advised reporters on Wednesday. “And we simply bought to be higher. We absolutely consider in ourselves, you already know, the issues that we will do once we’re absolutely locked in, and we’ve achieved it time and time once more.”
Tatum led by instance and set the tone on the sport’s first possession when he stole the ball from Benedict Mathurin, his first of three takeaways on this one. The remainder of the Celtics adopted go well with and put the clamps on Indiana. By the halftime buzzer, Boston had accrued 10 complete shares (seven steals, three blocks) and made the Pacers work for each single considered one of their 45 factors.
In the meantime, on the alternative finish, the Cs performed stunning basketball, shortly constructed a lead, and by no means regarded again. They created glorious seems to be possession after possession and the Pacers had no reply.
The type of creation that we noticed from the Celtics was night time and day from what occurred on Wednesday. There was no stagnation, pressured pictures, or sloppy possessions — simply connectivity.
“The sport is related, and you’ll’t have a look at it from a static scenario of it’s this aspect versus that aspect,” mentioned Joe Mazzulla. “In case you’re having stay ball turnovers and never enjoying bodily on the offensive finish, it’s going to affect the opposite finish. In case you’re not doing issues on the different finish, it’s going to affect offense… I assumed you noticed only a higher connectivity between each side of the ball, to the place we had been capable of preserve them out of transition and preserve them off the free throw line.”
In order for you an instance of 1 aspect of the ball impacting the opposite, look no additional than Jaylen Brown. Brown, very like Tatum, set the tone instantly. His first half efficiency (and likewise the sport as a complete) was legendary. JB sank his first 9 pictures, together with a pair of loud dunks, en path to a 44-point outing in opposition to Indiana. It didn’t cease there for him both. He led the workforce in steals with 4 takeaways and had little interest in letting followers down once more after a troublesome Christmas loss.
“We simply needed to be able to go,” defined Brown. “You realize, nevertheless the sport was going to be performed.”
In case you ask Payton Pritchard, the sport was performed with depth.
“The depth we play with, the tempo we play with the ball stress, after which simply being energetic off ball, like serving to our guys out, say, if we see man get beat, we’re recovering. We’re having a number of efforts. And I feel tonight we confirmed that we had quite a lot of deflections. I don’t know what number of steals JB had, however like, it was simply energetic, and it makes a distinction we get out and working after that, so one thing we simply bought to be conscious of, and preserve enjoying that approach.”
Boston may have an opportunity to maintain up their depth on Sunday night time after they get one other have a look at the Pacers. It’s robust to think about that it’ll be simple to close them down in again to again video games, however we’ll simply should see.
