Jaylen Brown dropped a cool 35 points in the Celtics win over the Sixers, but that wasn’t the hardest thing he did at the Garden Tuesday night.
The toughest part was figuring out what he was going to say about Bill Russell.
“I wrote some stuff down and then I ended up just scrapping the page,” Brown admitted. “How do you figure out a group of words that kind of encapsulates what Bill Russell's legacy meant to me, meant to the city, and so many others? It was tough to kind of find the words. Tonight was a special night and it was amazing to be able to play in his honor.”
The Celtics have a checkered history when it comes to these big games to honor people. They got demolished in the Tommy Heinsohn tribute game. They lost games on nights when Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett had their numbers retired. But Brown and Jayson Tatum made sure that dropping one on the first of many tributes to Russell wasn’t going to join that list.
“Playing in the light of a Bill Russell, starting the season off, the memorial ceremony before the game. It was just unique and special,” Brown said. “I'm happy that we both came out and performed and we got the win, but it feels a little bit better knowing what we were playing and who we were playing for.”
It’s too early for statements to be made. Both Brown and Tatum answered questions about that by saying “it’s just one game,” but this one game was an important one, for a lot of reasons.
In a broad sense, it officially closes the door on the disappointment of last season. The Celtics can finally say they’ve moved on.
“I’m glad the season has started so we can in a sense stop talking about it,” Tatum said “But it was a tough summer for myself, everybody, because everywhere I went, somebody mentioned ‘good job in the Finals, next year, you guys did well.’
“And they meant it in a good way, but it’s just a reminder that you lost. You got to the top and you didn’t get over that hump. So just kind of dealing with that all summer and realizing that it’s opening night. One team is getting their ring and we’re not. So that kind of kept me up late last night. But it’s a new season, and just ready to move past it.”
Maybe they were just really eager to do that, because this performance from the Jays felt a little different.
“It was just in the flow,” Tatum said. “A lot of times we don’t necessarily call sets, and if we do, it’s kind of random sometimes, but it’s all about making the sacrificial cut or getting somebody else open, or passing up a good shot for a great shot, getting out in transition. The ball rewards good basketball, and the guys trust us to make the right play. The right play can be for ourselves sometimes or others, so I think it was just in the flow of the game tonight.”
The flow took Tatum to the rim a lot, allowing him to display a different kind of attack. This wasn’t just some pissed off Tatum, or a version of him that was overly motivated.
No, this Tatum just looked more confident that he was going to get to where he wanted on the floor. This wasn’t just out-working or out-thinking an opponent, it was over-matching them.
“A lot has to do with just health and how I feel, being able to get the proper amount of rest coming into the season and kind of go through the stages of proper offseason,” Tatum said. “I felt as good as I possibly can going into training camp, started the season from a physical standpoint from the way my body feels, my legs and the weight I’m at, it’s the best I’ve felt probably coming into a season in the last 2-3 years, so I think that helps.”
Tatum has been building up to this over the first few weeks of October, while Brown has been in mid-season mode since he walked into the Auerbach Center.
“We both are extremely competitive, both are trying to get better, trying to make our franchise better, trying to make our teammates better as we’re all chasing a championship,” Brown said. “We both had a bad summer after losing to the Warriors on our home floor and had to answer for it all summer long. I can speak for him, and I can speak for myself that it was tough. So going into this season, we kept all of that in mind.”
It’s always good to get a win under the belt right away, but it was especially important to do it against a team they’ll be jockeying against in the standings all year long. There might be a tiebreaker at some point, and this win could be what helps break it.
But there's a long way to go between now and then, and both these teams will be very different by then. The journey from now to then will be full of unpredictable twists, but the Celtics hope the types of performances they got from Brown and Tatum will be more of a constant.
They showed up confident and motivated, and the years of experience seem to be showing in their games. They each had moments where they did things we weren’t sure we’d seen before. They each had their time to shine, but neither seemed to force it all that much (ok, maybe there was a heat check or two in there, but that's beside the point).
They let the game dictate what was needed, and they each provided it organically. They played like the stars Boston needs, and with the maturity Boston wants. As the old saying goes, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and the Celtics took the best possible step with their two young stars to start this weird, new season.