BSJ Game Report: Celtics 140, Hornets 129 (OT): Celtics stars shine in character-building win

Everything you need to know about the Celtics 140-129 overtime win in Charlotte with BSJ insight and analysis:

Jayson Tatum had it all working in this one all game long, finishing with 41 points on 50% shooting from the field and on 3-pointers. He added 8 assists, 7 rebounds, and was a perfect 7-7 from the line. Charlotte made a late run to take a lead when the Celtics, again, let go of the proverbial rope and began standing around. However, Tatum and Jaylen Brown, along with some key plays from Marcus Smart and Robert Williams, would storm back to tie the game and dominate the overtime to head back home 2-2.

Box Score

HEADLINES

Tatum did it all: Sure, he had a couple of tough plays at the end of regulation, but it was Tatum’s defense, boxing out, and setting up teammates that really helped Boston get back into the game and ultimately pull it out. 

The Celtics didn’t quit: I’ll let Smart handle this one. 

"It's showing our growth. I don't know if last year we would've been in that same situation. Nine times out of 10, we probably would've folded. It just shows that the growth that we're showing as a team, as individuals. We came out with a good win tonight."

[Insert: Dwight Schrute “it’s true” gif]

Growth is growth, and beating a 3-0 Hornets team on the road like this is growth. 

A lot of guys pitched in: The Celtics got big time performances from both of their stars, and while neither Smart nor Dennis Schröder had perfect games, they made plays at the end when it mattered. 

TURNING POINT

It was 114-104 when Brown hit a layup with five minutes to go in the game. That triggered an 18-8 run over the rest of the quarter that sent the game into overtime. 

“Just keep telling each other we have a lot of game left,” Tatum said of the team’s mindset in the moment. “In basketball, five and a half minutes is a long time, a lot of possessions. We just had to focus on getting stops. We started pressing just to kind of speed them up a little bit.”

SECOND GUESS

I’m struggling with the Dennis Schröder/Smart pairing. It’s being done out of some kind of necessity with Horford missing this game, but I don’t want this combination to turn into this year’s version of last year’s Tristan Thompson/Daniel Theis frontcourt experiment. They each made some plays down the stretch, but also the offensive limitations it puts on the team were part of why the C’s struggled at times. 

FIVE UP

Jayson Tatum: This was an MVP-level game. If he does this every night, or most nights, then he’s in the conversation, and it’s not because he scored 41. Sure, that’s nice, but Tatum’s fingerprints were all over that final stretch on both ends of the floor. His alley-oop to Robert Williams was not only brilliant, it gave Boston a lead with 1:42 left in the game. 

Jaylen Brown: You won’t find many 30 point, 9 rebound, 3 assist, 3 steal games get this overshadowed, but Brown was huge in this game, especially triggering that fourth quarter comeback and drilling a 3-pointer in overtime. 

Robert Williams: Easily his best game of the season (which might raise some questions about the Williams/Horford pairing too, but let’s circle back on that one at another time). Another 3 blocked shots in this game matches his average so far this season, and tack on 4 assists for him too. His backdoor pass to Brown in the first quarter and a patient transition dime to Juancho Hernangomez were brilliant.

Jabari Parker: He was an early spark plug, giving Boston 11 early points when the rest of the guys were shooting terribly. He was 4-4 in that stretch, so we’ll just let the 1-4 in the second half slide. Side note: maybe his nickname should be pumpkin, because that's what he turns into when he’s out there for too long.

Dennis Schröder: Hot shooting night for Schröder, who hit 4-9 from deep and 7-8 from the line on his way to 23 points. He also dropped 8 assists with only 1 turnover. 

Marcus Smart: A purely Marcus Smart game, as he made some monster defensive plays, especially late in the game. He was 1-9 on 3-pointers, but of course that one 3-ball was a huge one in that comeback that cut the lead down to 5. It turns out Smart almost didn’t play. 

“Dealing with migraines and just body aches. I didn't even know if I was going to play tonight,” he said after the game. “they were feeding me water. I was just eating a banana to continue to have fluids in me. Like I said, I decided to go, I decided to fight through it and I'm glad I got out there and helped my team."

FOUR DOWN

Marcus Smart: So maybe the migraines and body aches were part of why he has been shooting poorly. But make no mistake, he’s been shooting really poorly. Nine 3-pointers is a few too many no matter what the malady. If he didn’t come up with that huge steal at the end of regulation and Boston lost, he’d be the target of a lot of vitriol (and he still will be, who are we kidding?)

Dennis Schröder: The box score won’t show just how awkward some of the time with him on the floor was. There were times in this game where Schröder’s over-dribbling led to Boston’s worst moments. Early on, when he was really going for his offense, it felt like he was doing so at the expense of Tatum and Brown. Since they obviously recovered to have awesome games, that will be forgotten, but it still makes me think he should be coming off the bench. 

Josh Richardson: He played 15 minutes that I completely forgot about, other than his turnover where he tripped over his own feet.

Juancho Hernangomez: Just four minutes for Juancho, and I’m starting to think this reclamation project might not end well.

PLAY OF THE GAME

Jaylen Brown caught a body:

Shout out to Miles Bridges who owned it after the game.

Also imma jump everytime down 3 in an overtime game or anytime the game on the line!! Helluva play!!

— Miles Bridges (@MilesBridges) October 26, 2021 

Jaylen on the dunk: “ I had to make up for the missed dunk in New York. So my teammates was teasing me a little bit. It was just a good play. Miles, obviously, is one of the better athletes in the league, so I knew that if I tried to lay it up, he was going to send it back to Boston. So I knew if was going up, I was going up with bad intentions.”

ONE TAKE KARALIS WILL PROBABLY REGRET LATER

This is a character-builder: As I said earlier, I don’t believe last year’s team wins this game, and the more performances we see like this, the more we can reevaluate the loss to Toronto. 

“I think the Toronto game was an aberration,” Ime Udoka said. “We played hard in preseason and every day in training camp, they are going at each other hard in practice and in the first three games other than the Toronto game. So they are building on that, playing the way we wanted to, sharing the ball offensively obviously, but also playing hard, trying to get that defensive mindset down.”

The NBA season is a long haul. We love to get caught up in every little detail, but NBA teams trudge through the schedule like a platoon on a march. Every victory along the way adds up, and the losses are treated as opportunities to learn, grow, and readjust. 

Charlotte is a good team with very talented players and a style the Celtics have struggled with. They found a way to win this one, so they can get onto the team plane with a little confidence boost that they can turn the corner after a bad stretch. 

File that away. Add it to the pile. Build on it.

There’s another game in two days. Go do it again.