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 obtained to look within the mirror and man up,” he informed reporters on Wednesday. “And we simply obtained to be higher. We absolutely consider in ourselves, you already know, the issues that we are able to do once we’re absolutely locked in, and we’ve executed 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 complete shares (seven steals, three blocks) and made the Pacers work for each single certainly one of their 45 factors.
In the meantime, on the other finish, the Cs performed stunning basketball, rapidly constructed a lead, and by no means regarded again. They created glorious seems to be possession after possession and the Pacers had no reply.
The form of creation that we noticed from the Celtics was evening and day from what occurred on Wednesday. There was no stagnation, pressured pictures, or sloppy possessions — simply connectivity.
“The sport is related, and you may’t have a look at it from a static state of affairs of it’s this aspect versus that aspect,” stated Joe Mazzulla. “When you’re having stay ball turnovers and never enjoying bodily on the offensive finish, it’s going to affect the opposite finish. When you’re not doing issues on the different finish, it’s going to affect offense… I assumed you noticed only a higher connectivity between each side of the ball, to the place we had been capable of hold them out of transition and hold them off the free throw line.”
If you need an instance of 1 aspect of the ball impacting the opposite, look no additional than Jaylen Brown. Brown, very like Tatum, set the tone instantly. 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 troublesome 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 plenty 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 obtained to be aware of, and hold enjoying that manner.”
Boston could have an opportunity to maintain up their depth on Sunday evening after they get one other have a look at the Pacers. It’s robust to think about that it’ll be straightforward to close them down in again to again video games, however we’ll simply must see.