Celtics
Jaylen Brown had a monstrous game in Tatum’s absence.
Jaylen Brown was unequivocally brilliant
The Celtics will play bigger, more consequential games during this playoff run, but Wednesday’s game quietly meant quite a bit.
A win meant that the Celtics could buy Jayson Tatum five days of rest for the wrist that he landed on hard in Game 1. It reminded everyone that the Celtics are the best team in the series even without their All-NBA forward. Perhaps most importantly, the win pulled the Celtics one step closer to ending a series against a team that is often described euphemistically as “physical.”
At the heart of the win was Jaylen Brown, who had a monstrous game in Tatum’s absence. Brown finished with a hyper-efficient 36-point outburst, shooting 12-for-19 from the floor and 5-for-7 from deep. He got to the rim seemingly at will, abusing mismatches against bigger, slower players. He buried a tough isolation 3-pointer in the first quarter and knocked down his open spot-up looks. He got to the free-throw line eight times and made seven of them. He even knocked down this utterly absurd rainbow mid-range jumper after a series of herky-jerky dribble moves.
Defensively, Brown was up for the challenge against Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner, and he pulled down 10 rebounds, all on the defensive end, to go with five assists.
“At the end of the day, he’s willing to do whatever it takes for us to win,” Joe Mazzulla said. “And he didn’t come in saying he had to get 36 and 10, he came in and said, ‘I’m going to do whatever it takes to win.’ And that’s what he told me yesterday. That’s just the mindset that he has. So regardless if it’s going well for him or not, he can take it to another level, and he did that for us, and I thought the guys kind of fed off of that.”
Brown was, in short, brilliant – perhaps the only negative part of the evening was watching him limp off the floor following his postgame interview, which was a reminder that for all of his excellence, he still isn’t 100 percent healthy and probably won’t be for the rest of the postseason.
It remains to be seen whether Tatum will return for Friday’s game or whether Boston will push their luck and try to more or less put the series on ice without him as it shifts to Orlando, but Brown’s performance in Game 2 gave them the option either way.
“My first interview with Boston, I said I was going to go to war for the city,” Brown said. “I don’t think nothing has changed.
“Whatever it takes, every single night, leave it out there, and you hope for the best.”
Kristaps Porzingis got bloodied
Late in the third quarter, Kristaps Porzingis took one of the more direct hits to the head that you’ll see in an NBA game when Goga Bitadze flailed going for a rebound.
Bitadze pretty clearly didn’t mean to hit Porzingis, but he was also very reckless swinging his arms around his head as he tried to coax a foul out of the officials, and as a result, he was hit with a flagrant one. Porzingis walked off the floor, then returned to take his free throws with a big grin and blood still caked in his hair and all over his face. He went 1-for-2 at the line before returning to the locker room, presumably to try to wash the blood off a little better.
Not everything the Magic do is explicitly dirty, but they don’t always seem to be particularly concerned about where their limbs swing.
Porzingis – who said he needed five stitches total – acknowledged that he loves his “WWE moments” when he can get the crowd going as part of a bloody spectacle, and he enjoyed returning to the game to a big ovation.
“Honestly, how can I not come out?” Porzingis added. “Like, ‘Oh, I have five stitches, I can’t play any more.’ My legs work, everything works, so of course I’m going to be out there. And you know me. I like these moments. Coming back out again, getting a little love from the crowd. It just happens within the game and this is not going to stop me. So I’m going to keep going.”
Porzingis had a much better game on Wednesday after his tough outing in Game 1 – he scored 20 points on 5-for-14 shooting, going 10-for-14 at the line as the Magic fouled him repeatedly trying to deal with his size.
Joe Mazzulla was decidedly himself about the blood
Predictably, Mazzulla – who was caught on camera screaming “Get up!” at his superstar wing after Tatum got hurt on Sunday – had a unique take on Porzingis’ cut.
Mazzulla first praised Porzingis’ mentality, noting that he has a good sense of how to take things deeply seriously on the court while still playing to the crowd with blood pouring down his face.
“I like watching him bleed on the court,” Mazzulla said. “I think it’s important, and then he comes back in and does his job. So I do like that about him.”
We would challenge any reader to come up with a more perfectly Joe Mazzulla quote than “I like watching him bleed on the court.”
Al Horford and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope got contentious
Horford and Caldwell-Pope took exception to one another after Caldwell-Pope’s flagrant foul injured Jayson Tatum in Game 1, and tempers continued to flare in Game 2. With just under five minutes remaining in the second quarter, Horford and Caldwell-Pope got tangled up running back up the floor, and Caldwell-Pope tripped Horford – sending him to the floor. Horford popped up off the ground immediately, yapping at Caldwell-Pope before he turned his back to the play and retreated to the bench with his hands held high. Brown said something to Caldwell-Pope as well before the officials intervened.
The entire incident proved to be nothing – officials watched the replay and ultimately determined that Caldwell-Pope tripping Horford was a common foul and that the flaring tempers were just playoff basketball.
Still, a contentious series may have been inevitable against a physical team like the Magic, and Wednesday’s game provided some low-level fireworks.
“We’re not going to let anybody punk us,” Porzingis said. “And we expect teams to be doing this kind of stuff, to get in our heads, to try to provoke us, to try to maybe get some reaction out of us, some technical maybe, something. It’s an emotional game, obviously, so we weren’t surprised but we’re just not going to take it. So we’re going to hit them right back.”
Jrue Holiday … dunked?
Jrue Holiday had precisely one dunk in the regular season, but he busted this out in Game 2.
It’s not fully healthy Jaylen Brown, but for a 34-year-old who otherwise plays a relatively ground-bound game, it’s not a bad slam.
Payton Pritchard wasn’t surprised.
“I’ve seen it plenty of times,” he said. “I think maybe the crowd is because they ain’t seen it in a long time, but, I mean, that was easy. So obviously he’s capable of doing that way more.”
Holiday played his usual high-level defense and remained a great switching option against Magic stars Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner, both of whom struggled against smaller defenders who were able to bother their dribble.
Holiday finished with 11 points on 4-for-9 shooting.
Payton Pritchard’s defense was pesky
Pritchard was given his Sixth Man of the Year trophy prior to Wednesday’s game, and while his scoring was in line with his averages (14 points, 5-for-11 shooting), his defense was excellent. The Celtics let Pritchard defend Banchero – who is at least nine inches taller – on several occasions, and Pritchard more than held his own, bothering Banchero into turnovers, missed shots and difficult possessions.
Pritchard is short, but he’s very strong, very fast and very determined, all of which make him a nightmarish player when the Celtics apply pressure to the ball. The Celtics appeared to make a point of trying to speed the Magic up and force them out of their comfortable half-court offense, which is perfect for Pritchard’s defensive skill set.
The series shifts to Orlando
The teams will now travel to Orlando for Friday’s Game 3, as the Magic try to find a way to apply a little pressure.
Brown said the Celtics still have a lot of room for improvement.
“Every game has its own story,” he said. “This game was one, last game was another story, and the next one’s going to be something else.
“We’ve just got to be the ones telling that story rather than the ones watching it or listening to it.”
Game 3 tips off at 7:00 p.m.
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