Back in January during the Celtics worst stretch of the regular season, Derrick White admitted he had lost his love for the game.
“I was going into the arena, and just didn’t have the same amount of joy,” he said. During that nine-game run, White averaged just 10 points and 3 assists, hitting a dismal 23.9% of his threes. Boston mirrored that energy with a 4-5 record.
But of course, White bounced back with the team in two. In February, March, and April, he averaged 17 points and 5.7 assists in his final thirty games. And in Game 1 of the NBA Playoffs, he delivered again.
The Celtics started strong, but by halftime, they were down 1. To start the third quarter, White had a cutting layup and a 4-point play as part of a 15-4 run and the Celtics never looked back.
“It’s fun,” White told ESPN’s Lisa Salters after leading the team in scoring with 30 points (7-of-12 from 3). “My teammates do a great job finding me and keeping me involved in the offense. It’s a lot of fun when you got it going, but we got a long way to go.”
Jrue Holiday recalled a moment in which he was fighting for a rebound tonight and Derrick White came out of nowhere for a rebound:
“That’s just how it goes.”
“Derrick makes the game a lot easier for everyone.” pic.twitter.com/flIXTgWLCq
— Noa Dalzell (@NoaDalzell) April 20, 2025
The marquee matchup of the series was supposed to be Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum versus Orlando’s young duo of Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner. Banchero ended up scoring more (36 points) than Brown and Tatum combined (33), but Boston’s “others” made up the difference. White and Payton Pritchard had 49; Wagner and the rest of the Magic had only 50 in the Game 1 loss.
“They have two main guys, but really, it’s the other guys that kill you. We need to do a better job of getting those guys off the line because they really kill you from 3,” Banchero said. “Pritchard, four threes. Derrick White, seven threes. Jrue Holiday, three threes. That’s the game right there.”
If there’s a perfect player for Joe Mazzulla’s system, it might be White. Sure, NBA teams need NBA stars, but how a team is built around them might even be more critical. Ever since President of Basketball Operations Brad Stevens acquired White back in 2022, he’s been the perfect fit next to the Jays as a perimeter threat, lockdown defender, and secondary playmaker.
“We’ve played a lot of games together. We’ve gone through many battles together. We just trust one another. Guys can trust me to be in a certain spot and it’s my job to hit that. KP, JT, and JB get a lot of attention. It’s my job to kinda fill in those holes and be where I need to be,” White said.
“Derrick’s ability to just impact the game offensively and defensively is huge,” Mazzulla said. “We need everyone to be aggressive and he does a great job finding the shots that are important to us. He had some physical plays on the defensive end. He had a block in transition that was big for us in the second half. So yeah, he was important.”
White has come up big in so many big moments — the putback in Game 6 in Miami or the block in Game 2 of the Finals, to name a few — and to open the 2025 playoffs, it was a big scoring game. The joy undoubtedly is back.
