The Celtics gave us what we’ve all been looking for on Wednesday night.
No drama. No doubt. They were Mike Tyson, the Nets were Marvis Frazier.
“It’s clear as day they want to win the championship and they're not wasting any time in the regular season,” Kyrie Irving said after the blowout. “I felt like we were just one of those teams in the way.”
The Celtics haven't had as many nights like this as they probably should have. There were certainly a few games this season that were candidates for wire-to-wire, garbage-time games. But the Celtics haven't been living up to their end of the bargain as often anyone, including they themselves, would like.
"Yeah, good to mix it up a little bit,” Jayson Tatum joked. “These 47-minute nights I've been having and overtime games, it's good to be able to rest the fourth quarter and let some of the guys that don't always get an opportunity to play. So it was good. I like the way we came out. Obviously, we shot the ball well. But I just think our attention to the game plan and play the right way. You could tell we were ready to go from the jump."
They were indeed. A lot of the talk after this game will be the TD Garden record 26 3-pointers (one shy of the team record), but they started out by attacking. They finished with 54 points in the pain and 30 fastbreak points, running every chance they got in the early going and getting to the rim with ease.
Halfway through the first quarter, when Boston’s lead hit 20 and it was clear they had a chance at a special night, they were 10-16 from the field, but they were 6-12 on 2-pointers (three of them courtesy of Robert Williams) and 4-4 on 3-pointers.
“I thought we got out to a great start. We chose to be aggressive on both ends of the floor,” Joe Mazzulla said. “We weren't reactive not proactive in our approach to both ends. I thought that mindset kind of started it for us.”
A year ago at around this time, the Celtics were starting to feel themselves and go on their huge run that got them all the way to the Finals. They weren’t just winning games, they were dominating them. Not since they ran away with a game in Phoenix a couple of months ago have we seen this kind of thrashing. Aside from a short stretch in the second quarter, the Celtics played the closest thing to a perfect game that you’ll see at this level.
“They got Kyrie out there but it's easy to let your guard down and say we're gonna beat this team, regardless, we're at home. Then they come out and you know, give you a really good game,” Malcolm Brogdon said. “We're locked in. We’re, honestly, looking past this look, looking past these games at the playoffs. We're trying to prepare the right way every night, every game. But our goal is to be peaking in the playoffs.”
The Nets could be a team Boston sees in the playoffs. The last time they faced each other, it didn’t go very well. If this is how the Celtics will play in a rematch, that one might be quick too.
“I'm not going to stop until I figure out what this methodology is to the Boston Celtics right now and why they're so hot,” Irving said. “I think I have a main reason and it’s just how connected they are and how much they played together, how many minutes they've logged in together, and that chip on their shoulder. You can see it. You can feel it.”
That's not something that's been said often of these Celtics, but it was true here on Wednesday night. When the Celtics put a complete game together, they can take a team like the Nets with a bunch of guys missing but enough talent to make a team sweat, and decimate them.
They have it in them to play like this when they want. Maybe the three days off helped, and maybe we can consider that encouraging since there's more time like this to rest in the playoffs. But whatever it is, it was important to see them show they had it in them.
Of course, the next step is doing it again.
“I don't know if we needed it. It was good to have,” Mazzulla said. “Every game you have, you have to learn from, regardless of what happens. So I think the guys feel good, we were able to rest. Guys were able to play lesser minutes than normal, so you're able to relax a little bit. But you don't want to relax too much. So you got to be grateful for the result that you have but you got to understand that you got to keep moving forward.”