Celtics
The Magic held a one-point lead at halftime in Sunday’s Game 1, but the Celtics rode a strong second half from White to win 103-86.
Derrick White was key as the Celtics opened their playoff run with a 103-86 victory over the Magic in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference first-round series on Sunday.
Here are the takeaways.
Derrick White was brilliant.
On the first day of the Celtics’ season that we’ve all been looking forward to for months, they got a nice reminder that while they are a great team because of their superstars, they are the defending champions because of their depth.
With Jayson Tatum ice cold for much of the game (more on that in a minute), the Celtics stuck to their preferred style of play – moving the ball around the floor and finding open shooters throughout Sunday’s contest. White took advantage, shooting 7-for-12 from behind the arc and 10-for-18 overall en route to a team-high 30 points.
Defensively, White was excellent as well – he recorded a steal and two blocks, including one remarkable swat against Paolo Banchero in transition.
“Derrick’s ability to just impact the game offensively and defensively is huge, and we need everyone to be aggressive, and he does a great job finding the shots that are important for us, and he does a great job finishing the shots that are important for us,” Joe Mazzulla said. “He had some physical plays on the defensive end, had a block in transition there that was big for us down there in the second half. So yeah, he was important.”
The Magic are an interesting matchup for White – he’s one of the best defensive guards in the NBA and he has great size (and elite athleticism) for his position, but the Magic are one of the few teams that can actually overpower him in certain matchups. Banchero is a matchup nightmare, and while Franz Wagner had a decidedly mediocre shooting performance (24 points on 10-for-23 shooting), he’s a very tall presence on the wing as well.
The problem for the Magic is twofold – the Celtics have players like Derrick White who can score even when Tatum and Jaylen Brown aren’t particularly efficient, and they have players like Derrick White who keep competing and trying to block shots even when they are overpowered a couple of times in the first half.
The Magic, of course, are far from the only team who have that problem.
“Derrick makes the game a lot easier for everybody,” Jrue Holiday said.
Jayson Tatum had a worrisome moment.
Early in the fourth quarter, the Celtics saw a nerve-wracking moment – Tatum went down hard after being fouled in midair, and he remained on the ground holding his troublesome right wrist for an extended stretch before he walked to the bench wincing.
The officials huddled, watched the play several times, and eventually gave Kentavious Caldwell-Pope a flagrant one, even though the contact looked incidental (albeit very frightening from a Celtics perspective).
The good news for the Celtics: Tatum returned to the floor for the rest of the game and played a key role the rest of the way – he hit a 3-pointer and a turnaround jumper, and he rumbled to the rim for a layup as the Celtics put the game on ice.
The bad news: He missed both free throws in the immediate aftermath and looked really uncomfortable doing it. The cameras also captured Tatum flexing his wrist repeatedly and wincing, including one at the end of the game after he checked out with the final score all but decided.
“I just landed on it,” Tatum said afterward. “It was throbbing for a second. Kind of went away.”
Tatum added that he got X-rays on the wrist, which came back clean.
“I think that’s what makes us so dangerous, that we just have a really well-balanced team,” Tatum said. “Guys step up and it can be different guys on any night. And everybody else just kind of figures out their part to make sure we win.”
Tatum, of course, is the engine that drives the Celtics as a championship contender, and they need him at full health – or at least, close enough to full health to play his All-NBA first-team quality game – for the duration if they hope to repeat.
After his late flurry, Tatum finished with 23 points on 8-for-22 shooting. He was just 1-for-8 from deep, but he pulled down 13 rebounds and – as is often the case – helped the Celtics control the game despite his shooting struggles. He finished a team-high +23.
“He probably didn’t play the efficient offensive game that he would have liked, but I thought his poise, you couldn’t tell that,” Mazzulla said. “That never got in the way of his defense and his physicality and his rebounding. That’s the most important thing.
“He’s going to score, he’s going to put us in position to be successful, but you’ve got to answer the call defensively, physicality-wise. I thought he did that, especially rebounding in the second half.”
Payton Pritchard took a nasty knee from Cole Anthony.
Let’s welcome the playoffs back, and with them, the little micro-dramas that are under more scrutiny with more eyeballs on every contest.
On Sunday, Payton Pritchard was less than pleased after picking up a knock from Cole Anthony in the third quarter as the Magic guard tried to fight over a screen.
The play looked questionable at best and a little dirty at worst.
Pritchard motored around a screen from Horford, who closed any space for Anthony to get over the top. Rather than fighting around it normally, Anthony made a very odd motion with his right leg.
Judge it for yourself here.
Pritchard appeared hobbled for the next few possessions, but he never left the game, and he later buried a 3-pointer as the Celtics pulled away. He finished with 19 points on 6-for-8 shooting.
“That’s another dog,” Jaylen Brown said. “He’s been showing that all year with his mentality and his mindset.”
Jaylen Brown is feeling good.
Some good news on the injury front: Brown, who has been dealing with a balky right knee, said he is feeling good as the postseason gets underway.
“I’m feeling a lot better,” Brown said. “I’m feeling a lot better, moving a lot better. So I think that’s great. I think some people have definitely been praying for me over the last couple weeks or whatever, and I’m feeling a lot better. Just take it one day at a time.”
Brown, who threw down a big transition dunk in the second half, quipped that he “ain’t got one of those in a little bit.”
“We’re just getting started,” Brown said. “Today was my first game back after a little while. It’s the playoffs. It’s the best time of the year. So I’m excited. This is what I live for.”
Brown scored 16 points on 6-for-14 shooting, playing just 31 minutes.
“He knows how to take care of himself,” Mazzulla said. “He knows how to get to the spots that he needs to get to. To me, it’s more he’s getting better and better even defensively from the physicality standpoint. He had some great possessions on being careful there in the first half.
“So he’s right where he wants to be.”
The Celtics played playoff-quality defense.
From the tip, the Celtics looked like a different team defensively – a veteran group that knows how and when to flip the switch between the regular season and the playoffs.
The Magic struggled to do anything offensively in the first quarter, posting just 18 points as the Celtics took an eight-point lead. After struggling a bit in the second, the Celtics clamped down in the third and essentially decided the game by posting a 30-16 quarter. Out of the four quarters, the Celtics held the Magic under 20 in three of them.
The Magic have some star power – Banchero dropped 36 points on 14-for-27 shooting and looked very much like a late-May-quality prospect in the process.
But despite a 3-for-3 start from behind the arc, Banchero scores the vast majority of his points inside the arc, and the Celtics are good enough defensively to withstand 27 possessions that end in a two-point field-goal attempt. They are going to score plenty of points, and unless the Magic tap into something unforeseen from behind the 3-point line, the Celtics look like they are in a good position after the first 48 minutes of the series.
Jrue Holiday had an outsized impact.
Holiday’s statline won’t pop off the sheet (nine points, 3-for-6 shooting), but he made two big 3-pointers in the third quarter as the Celtics pulled away, and his defense might be even better suited for the Magic than White – Holiday has said publicly that he prefers to guard bigger, bruising players than shifty guards, and with the exception of Cole Anthony, the Magic are built around big, bruising players.
“He’s an innate competitor, and sometimes he takes a back seat because of the type of guys that we have,” Mazzulla said. “I thought tonight, he put the team on his back from that passion and emotion standpoint, and that’s why Jrue Holiday is Jrue Holiday. So we’re lucky to have him. We’re going to need that every single night.”
Holiday was plus-15 in the box score, and he recorded five assists and three steals.
“It’s playoff basketball, so you can feel the energy in the arena, you can feel it in the air, you can feel it in the team,” Holiday said. “It’s just one of those feelings, like, we’re here.”
A two-day break.
One bit of good news for a Celtics team with a couple of bruises: They will get two days off before they take on the Magic again at TD Garden. Their contest Wednesday tips off at 7 p.m.
“Tonight, we got the win,” Brown said. “But we’ve got to look forward to playing better. This Magic team, this Orlando team is not going to go away.”
Sign up for Celtics updates🏀
Get breaking news and analysis delivered to your inbox during basketball season.
