The folks at TNT were loving this matchup a week ago. Brooklyn, led by Kevin Durant playing some of the best basketball of his life, was rocketing up the standings faster than an Elon Musk vanity project. Jayson Tatum and the Celtics were waiting at the top, creating an easily-written script calling for a big buildup of MVP candidate vs. MVP candidate on the big stage, first place hanging in the balance.
Then Jimmy Butler fell onto Durant’s right knee, which led to a rewrite. And then Jaylen Brown tweaked his groin, leading to yet another one. But for the national TV folks, Kyrie Irving and Tatum were still good enough to sell.
It didn’t take long to realize they weren’t going to stick to this script either.
Sure, Tatum scored seven first-quarter points, but Luke Kornet did as well, and in a third of the playing time. TJ Warren and Joe Harris were Brooklyn’s leaders. The only person with more shots to their credit might have been the TNT producers reaching for a flask because half their prepared content was going to get flushed down the toilet.
Sometimes, though, games have to go off script.
With Tatum playing like he was giving Deuce a piggyback ride while trying to cross Warren over, the Celtics needed others to pick up the slack. And they responded.
The Celtics went into the second quarter down two and it quickly went to down nine. Joe Mazzulla summoned Tatum to check back in, and at that point, it looked like Boston would have to try to figure out a way to grind out an ugly win somehow. But with Tatum waiting to check in, Derrick White, Sam Hauser, and Payton Pritchard manufactured an 8-0 run to actually win the Tatum-less minutes.
“We just love the way the next guy can step up,” Marcus Smart said after the win. “Payton and Malcolm (Brogdon) coming in, and to be honest those two in that group with Sam, really changed the game for us. They got us in a rhythm, they got our momentum back for us.”
Tatum did have one good stretch at the end of the second quarter, scoring the final seven points of the half as part of a 16-7 closing run. But aside from that, nothing came easy for Tatum. Part of that was the fatigue of playing big minutes on the front end of a back-to-back. Part of it was some nagging injuries that seem to be catching up with him.
“When you look at my hand, I got tape on my wrist, tape on my thumb, I had to take my middle finger and ring finger together. I got a lot of shit going on,” he said. “It was uncomfortable tonight, but I love to play too much to sit out.”
We can debate the merits of playing when things like that are being bothersome, but by the time the fourth quarter rolled around, it was clear that Tatum was doing more to hold the team back than push it forward.
Enter Brogdon and Pritchard.
“We just picked up the pace, tried to push it a little bit, even if we didn't get a transition bucket,” Brogdon said. “We got multiple paint attacks and by 15 seconds on the shot clock, we're getting an open shot.”
And they were drilling them. Everyone aside from Smart and Tatum shot better than 50%, and even Smart was part of that club in the second half. The bench and role players have spent a lot of time struggling over the course of the December swoon. Since then, though, different players have been stepping up when called upon.
“It gives confidence to the depth of this team, to the guys that come in the game, the guys that are not typically the 20-point scorers that have to step up,” Brogdon said. “It gives them confidence. So in the playoffs, when teams are scouting JB and JT extremely hard, other guys are able to step up and help.”
This is why early-season adversity can actually be good for a team like Boston. Being forced to figure things out, even if some of it is self-inflicted, can be helpful.
Mazzulla talked about the team being judged by how they react to the bad games. Well, they’ve won five straight since getting embarrassed by the Thunder (who, by the way, have beaten Washington, Dallas, and Philly since then, and lost to Miami by one because the Heat went 40-40 from the line). They’ve won in a few different ways, not just because they shot their way to wins like they did earlier this season.
This is what growth looks like. It’s not always pretty and sometimes it hurts, but this is the process sometimes. Maybe there was an air of cockiness about how hot everyone was from beyond the arc to start the season and they had to be humbled to be able to move forward. Maybe some guys just had to realize that the best way to play had less to do about themselves and more about the team.
“Everybody has to sacrifice to be on a great team,” Tatum said. “We have individual guys that come off the bench that could start on the majority of the teams. We got guys that start that can average more on another team. But anybody would tell you how much fun and rewarding it was last year in the playoffs to keep advancing and keep winning, to make it to the Finals. And no individual stat or accolades can measure up to being on a winning team as having fun.”
