DALLAS — Can we pretend,
That from now on,
There is no yesterday.
Paint a portrait of tomorrow,
with no colors from today.
Bill Withers wasn’t thinking about basketball when he sang Can We Pretend, but it’s hard to imagine a more appropriate song that should have been coursing through the earbuds of the Celtics heading into Dallas.
Moving on from that debacle in Oklahoma City was something everyone was anxious to do. But as the team pinched their noses and took the medicine of rewatching themselves at their worst, Joe Mazzulla sent a challenge to his team.
Well, everyone except Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown.
“His message was really simple,” Marcus Smart explained after beating Dallas. “Those two have been doing great. I've been on them constantly nonstop about making sure they play the right way. And it's your guys' job as role players to help them, and help them get better because they're making the right play. You got to be ready to knock the shot down, take what the defense gives you, and play with him with some passion.”
There's plenty of blame to go around after a mess like Tuesday night’s, but a team as deep as Boston’s shouldn’t have many all-out stinkers. Obviously, things happen, but the talent on this team is good enough to pick each other up on nights where some people might not have it.
“A lot of the times we feed off of the energy of the first group,” Malcolm Brogdon said. “When they, whether it's come out flat or not making shots, whatever it is, it's our job to come in there and pick them up. And I think when we don't, we're not doing our job. So I think we just got to be more consistent with that, regardless of how the first group comes out. Because we're used to them coming out so strong. When they don't, we gotta be able to come in and pick them up.”
Brogdon and Grant Williams answered the bell, together, for the first time in a long time. They responded to Mazzulla’s challenge by putting up a nearly evenly split 21-point first half. Williams was aggressive, driving, and finishing around the rim. Brogdon played with good pace and knocked down shots.
One of the stories after Tuesday night was the need for the bench to find itself. They were losing second quarters by nearly seven points per 100 possessions in their 10 games coming into this one. Their net rating in the second quarter against Dallas was +37.
“We needed to really step up,” Brogdon said. “I think that's every facet of the game, whether it's making shots, defending better, just coming in and filling in the gaps. I thought we answered the call.”
The Celtics put up 29 points in the first with only four points from Tatum and Brown and 11 overall from their starters. What Tatum and Brown did have was four assists in that quarter, answering their own challenge to play faster and give up good shots to get great ones.
“It's a challenge,” Mazzulla said. “Half our shots were threes tonight, which I love. And they weren't just one pass or one drive. There were some that were one drive and some that were multiple, so you have to find that balance because I do want our guys to shoot and have confidence. But there is something to the effect of getting multiple drives which kind of moves the defensive and wears them down a little bit.”
The third quarter belonged to the stars, but that point they were already up 18 points. By the time Tatum, Brown, and Smart put together 20 of the 25 points Boston scored in the quarter, the bench had done its job.
With Brown and White forced to sit, Williams and Brogdon stepped up. With the Mavericks defense keying on Tatum with Brown out of the game, the other guys made them pay.
“We’re all on the same team, we're all trying to accomplish the same thing,” Tatum said. “We can't do it without each other. I can't do it without JB. JB can't do it without Smart, without (Robert Williams) … so we all just gotta be better for each other. … As cliche as that sounds, it goes a long way. And it’s gonna be the best team that wins a championship.”
This is what it takes to be the best team. There is no secret about what they need to do or who they need to be. There are times when that goal gets fuzzy, but someone employed by the Celtics has to get them refocused. This time it was the coach, and the players heard his message.
“We accept it,” Smart said. “If we want to be great, we have to be able to take that criticism the right way and use it on the court, and that's what we did tonight.”