Karalis: Celtics deviate from the script, but now it's time to repeat the performance

The script was written for the Boston Celtics. For once, they didn't follow it.

They were facing a tough team that was beating them up. They couldn't get a bucket for the first 2:13 of the fourth quarter. They had a 24-second violation out of a timeout and a questionable foul, Marcus Smart's fourth, gave Derrick Rose two free throws to push the New York lead to seven.

This was the perfect time for the fragile Celtics to crumble. Except, they didn't.

"We didn’t shoot it perfectly," Brad Stevens said after the game. "We had that stretch at the start of the fourth where we went cold, but just a great response after a tough one last night."

It was a response that saw the Celtics, somehow, overcome another trigger that typically led to a collapse.

With the lead and the ball, the Celtics were poised to throw the game away when Jayson Tatum was bumped off his path and Smart threw the ball to where Tatum was supposed to be, but wasn't. Instead of slumping shoulders or finger pointing, Smart settled everyone down, took the blame, and moved on.



"We were able to stay calm," Smart said. "Something that we’ve been doing all season, we decided not to do and that’s hang our heads after a play like that off of a turnover, and you know, just trust one another; come down and get a stop and go down on the other end and execute.

"In the past, like I said, heads would have probably been hanging and the momentum probably would have shifted to the opponents. But tonight, we just made a big effort to constantly keep going no matter what happened on either end."

Who are these guys?

"Yesterday was a tough one for us. That wasn't our best showing," Jaylen Brown said. "I talked to JT before the game and we almost had to just forget about everything. I said, 'Let's come out and play basketball. Be aggressive and be the best version of ourselves.' There's so much outside noise and shifting around, I just needed to come out and be Jaylen. Our team played great together tonight."

The Celtics are Ferris Bueller running home after his wild day and we're his dad driving next to him in the car.

Did we just see? Wait... was that? Nahhh. 

But it was. These were the Celtics, spurred by their young stars taking ownership of the situation, buoyed by their heart and soul making the types of signature plays he's known for, getting contributions from the big offseason acquisition. On a back-t0-back. Without Kemba Walker or Evan Fournier.

This was, for once, how it was supposed to go.

"That was a what-we’re-used-to, grind-it-out, physical kind of Celtics win that I think has been what we’ve been about when we’re at our best," Stevens said. "Coming back (to) play another physical, tough team with Kemba out. That was one of our better wins of the year, all things considered, because of the way that our guys had to figure out a way to win."

This win is confusing in a lot of ways. This Celtics team doesn't do these things. They have glass jaws and crumble at the first sign of adversity. They panic.

This isn't in the script.

This could just be a one-off; a smokescreen of sorts like the ex who comes running back into your life swearing things will be different, only to do the same thing again and make it feel exponentially worse. This could be a big setup. No one would blame you for giving them the squinty side-eye right now.

Or, it could be something.

"We needed it. Those are the types of wins that really, really makes a team, really helps a team get on track," Smart said. "We’ve got to continue, to take this win and carry it on from here on out. It’s a great way for us to respond, especially on the second night of a back-to-back after losing a hard-fought game and to come back and play a team like this who we know comes in and they’re playing well all season. They’re very physical and they make you work for everything. We continue to just keep pushing, like I said, no matter what mistakes were made on either end, we kept believing in ourselves to the end."

The thing about turning points is you don't know whether they're actually turning points until you get down the road a bit. This feels like it could be one, but the Celtics logo could be shown letting go of a rope instead of holding onto a cane. These guys are known to get comfortable, quickly, and fall right back into their same old bad habits.

This is Tracy Jordan's one-man show from 30 Rock. He improvised his way to rave reviews, but he had to figure out how to do it all over again to actually win something.

So this was a nice performance Celtics. You deserve your flowers after this one.

Now go do it again.