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 means of two-and-half quarters and solely wound up with solely 105 on the finish of the evening.
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 acquired to look within the mirror and man up,” he advised reporters on Wednesday. “And we simply acquired to be higher. We absolutely consider in ourselves, you already know, the issues that we will do after we’re absolutely locked in, and we’ve finished 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 swimsuit and put the clamps on Indiana. By the halftime buzzer, Boston had accrued 10 whole shares (seven steals, three blocks) and made the Pacers work for each single one among their 45 factors.
In the meantime, on the other finish, the Cs performed lovely basketball, shortly constructed a lead, and by no means seemed again. They created wonderful seems possession after possession and the Pacers had no reply.
The type of creation that we noticed from the Celtics was evening and day from what occurred on Wednesday. There was no stagnation, compelled pictures, or sloppy possessions — simply connectivity.
“The sport is linked, and you may’t take a look at it from a static state of affairs of it’s this facet versus that facet,” mentioned Joe Mazzulla. “When you’re having reside ball turnovers and never taking part in bodily on the offensive finish, it’s going to influence the opposite finish. When you’re not doing issues on the different finish, it’s going to influence offense… I assumed you noticed only a higher connectivity between either side of the ball, to the place we had been in a position to maintain them out of transition and maintain them off the free throw line.”
If you need an instance of 1 facet of the ball impacting the opposite, look no additional than Jaylen Brown. Brown, very like Tatum, set the tone immediately. His first half efficiency (and likewise the sport as an entire) was legendary. JB sank his first 9 pictures, together with a pair of loud dunks, en path to a 44-point outing towards Indiana. It didn’t cease there for him both. He led the group in steals with 4 takeaways and had no real interest in letting followers down once more after a tricky Christmas loss.
“We simply needed to be able to go,” defined Brown. “You already know, nonetheless the sport was going to be performed.”
When 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 lively 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 believe tonight we confirmed that we had loads of deflections. I don’t know what number of steals JB had, however like, it was simply lively, and it makes a distinction we get out and operating after that, so one thing we simply acquired to be conscious of, and maintain taking part in that method.”
Boston could have an opportunity to maintain up their depth on Sunday evening once they get one other take 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.
