Friday’s heavyweight fight inside TD Garden between the Celtics and Cavaliers will probably be remembered for Donovan Mitchell’s 41-point performance and Jayson Tatum’s 46-point effort — but it was the Celtics bench that robbed Boston of the win.
With the Celtics down both Jrue Holiday (mallet finger) and Kristaps Porzingis (illness), they were going to need some depth pieces to step up and make a handful of plays against the No. 1 seed in the East.
Instead, they were invisible.
“I mean, you just got to put your team in the best position to win and make those adjustments there, but in a game when you lose like that, everybody has to be better,” Joe Mazzulla said. “Coaches have to be better, players have to be better. So, you got to make better adjustments. You try to put your team in a position to win.”
Boston received just six points from its bench Friday night — coming off two Payton Pritchard triples — while Cleveland’s bench contributed 33 points in its valiant comeback effort.
“Our bench was awesome,” Cleveland head coach Kenny Atkinson said. “They really kind of dug us out of the hole.”
Down 25-3 just minutes into Friday’s game, Atkinson turned to his bench, and they provided an immediate spark in the game.
“I think it started with the energy,” Mitchell said. “The first subs … pushing the pace, kind of get going. Ty (Jerome) was great vocally.”
Jerome was outstanding in Friday’s win, finishing a team-high +34 for the game, and wasn’t afraid to jaw off at Tatum and Jaylen Brown. The guard finished the quarter with eight points, two being threes, and cut the Celtics deficit down to 12.
De’Andre Hunter — who was acquired by Cleveland at the trade deadline — also was another key piece, and provided just what the Cavaliers were hoping for when they made the trade. Hunter finished with 12 points and was 3-3 from beyond the arc.
“I thought he made some timely baskets for them,” Brown said. “He’s shooting the ball well right now. He made 3-3 from three so he made some tough ones, too. It’s just something we’ll take note of.”
And on the other end of the court, the Celtics bench gave them nothing, and instead rode the coattails of Tatum and Brown’s hot night. What may be an even more jarring stat than the six total points scored was that the bench only took four shots — also all coming off the hands of Pritchard.
“When they are going like that, we just have to rally behind them,” Al Horford said. “They almost took us home tonight.”
A reason behind the low bench scoring is Mazzulla sticking with a seven-man rotation Friday, only playing Torey Craig and Drew Peterson a handful of minutes in the first half. Neither recorded a stat and Craig was a quick -8 in his less than three minutes, possibly giving Mazzulla more of a reason to stick with seven guys in the final 24 minutes.
Luke Kornet was the only other bench player to receive meaningful minutes, and while it wasn’t from a lack of effort, he didn’t provide much on the court and finished a -26.
“I mean, we had two guys out, and I thought the lineups presented different challenges on both ends of the floor,” Mazzulla said. “We constantly try to have lineups that kind of challenge what they do well at all times.”
The shortened rotation was definitely a questionable move in the fourth quarter when Cleveland was hunting Sam Hauser on offense. Every time Mitchell got the ball, he was looking to get switched onto Hauser.
“He’s been a great defender in the league for the last two, three years, and he earned a reputation for that,” Mazzulla said. “And so, the confidence comes from having him in the game, being able to defend.”
Maybe the answer is just as simple as Boston was missing two starters, and two very important ones in big games like this. The problem with that is the answer to its problem Friday may not be there in May as Holiday and Porzingis aren’t locks to be fully healthy two months from now.
The Celtics are going to need guys like Pritchard and Kornet to possibly provide big performances in the playoffs, but if they replicate what they did tonight, they could be in deep trouble in the East.
“Do I think we had enough to win the game?,” Brown said. “I think so, for sure. We’ll look at it on film and get better.”
