Some nights everything is going to be dropping and things will seem easy.
“What happens when the 3s stop dropping?”
is something you hear a lot.
On the season, the Celts are now 11-3 in games Porzingis sits.
Of those 11, a total of 7 have come against teams .500 or better.
The Celts have found a way.
That is how I would describe last night’s performance.
The Celtics found a way.
At the end of the day, finding a way to secure the W is all that matters.
Showing you’re able to survive and execute in big moments without KP matters.
With that said, let us begin.
When the stakes get higher, they need to rise to the occasion and execute.
This was one of those moments
We will begin with the play of Jayson Tatum.
Defensively he was everywhere in terms of breaking up passing lanes and getting out in transition.
Essentially, the best player showed up in the biggest moments and carried his team to the win.
Last time I checked that’s exactly what we all want to see Tatum do right?
When it gets into winning time, can he come through?
THAT is the part of his 4th quarter I love the most.
Once it was clear that Derrick White had it going, Tatum kept finding him.
When it came to the knockout punch from Jaylen, guess who passed it to him?
- Then of course there was the performance of Jaylen Brown.
In a game where the stars had to show up, the stars showed up in a big way.
Honestly, it’s the exact mindset that we’ve seen kill this team in the past.
Get that shit out of here.
While the makes were nice, it was the mindset I loved more.
It didn’t matter that for 42 minutes Derrick couldn’t throw a pea in the ocean.
Did you see ANY hesitation on those 4th quarter plays?
That’s the growth of Bald Derrick.
In 2021, he starts overthinking in that spot and doesn’t take those shots with confidence.
He grips it and rips it.
If he has the space, the shot is going up and chances are it’s going to drop.
The first “floater” off the backcourt to get things started off a Jaylen pass.
The up and under move with the left soon after.
When those close plays rim out, the 3s tend to go cold.
But once he shows that he’s locked in and in that zone?
You get a close like we saw last night.
The Pelicans only had 7 2nd chance points in the second half and just 2 fastbreak points.
An efficient 20 points on 7-11 (3-5), I thought Holiday filled his role perfectly.
Defensively, I’d say Jrue did as good a job on Zion as humanly possible.
In 25 possessions against Zion, he finished with just 4 points.
Given that Holiday is a point guard, that’s pretty damn impressive.
0 points on 8 possessions.
Al Horford is perfect.
OREBs, 50/50 balls, they were all going NO’s way early.
The game flipped once the Celts started to win those situations.
In turn that got the crowd juiced and the rest was history.
It seems small, but those things matter.
Especially in a comeback attempt.
You HAVE to be the aggressor and win those 50/50 plays.
- It was great to see Hauser snap out of his mini slump to make some big time 3s.
It’s as pure as pure gets in terms of a jumpshot.
The Bad
- It was maddening how frequently the Celts let Zion get them on his hip.
Everyone with a brain knows once you do that, it’s game over for you.
He’s took quick and too strong.
Make him hit a jumper for me one time!
I could live with the Brandon Ingram jumpers, he was making tough looks all night.
They cry about 3PA volume.
That 3PA volume is how the Celts pulled this win out.
If they are generating good looks (which they were), they need to shoot with confidence.
Water will find its level.
I mean, the team only had 11.
No other Celtic had more than 1, and too many of those 7 came from lazy passes.
That wasn’t great at times.
Guys are going right at him.
It’s just something to keep in the back of your mind as we enter the playoffs.
It’s the main reason why spacing is so important for the success of this offense.
So far this season, I’m not so sure that’s true.
I’ve seen CTE basketball before, and that is exactly what these plays were.
Did it ultimately matter?
But this is the exact opposite of what I’m looking for from Jrue in these moments.
Again, overall Jrue’s night was awesome, which is what made these plays so shocking.
You come here and you are somehow destined to play bonehead basketball at the end of games.
Make it make sense.
