I’m not going to pretend that this game against the New York Knicks in and of itself was some giant indicator of Boston’s ability to win a championship. These 48 minutes alone didn't ring some bell or lead to a major epiphany about the team.
They didn’t play their best defense to start the game. They didn’t play their best offense to finish it. In between, they built a 20 point lead, lost a bunch of it, and saw Jaylen Brown get ejected. As far as the two hours and 16 minutes of this game were concerned, it’s just a simple little win.
Congratulations. You won by double digits. Get back to work tomorrow in film session. We’re on to the Cavaliers.
But within this win lies a little bit of something that shows you why this team, haphazard as they may be at times, is still pretty damn good.
After the loss to Indiana, one of my biggest criticisms of the game was the basic no-show of the supporting cast. Kristaps Porzingis was out, Jrue Holiday was invisible, and the real Derrick White stayed in the locker room at halftime.
The Celtics needed these guys and they weren’t there.
On bad teams, problems like this tend to linger. Guys fall into an abyss of poor play. They lose composure or press.
But good teams tend to find solutions quickly. We tend to get upset when the team isn’t completely perfect, but that's not where the anger should be placed. Getting mad at imperfect play is like getting mad at the sunrise. It’s better to reset your expectations and understand that there will be downs. How long a team is down is the real sign we should be looking for.
They’ve lost five times, and only one of those followed a previous loss. Only once have they won a game without winning at least two more in a row.
Sure, they get down sometimes. But they almost always get right back up. Like White, who said he was horrible in the second half against the Pacers. All he did was lead the Celtics with 30 points.
“D-White’s a guy that you have to coach a little bit, but he's really hard on himself,” Joe Mazzulla said. “It starts with him because the ball is in his hands as the point guard, and he's pushing the pace. When he makes great decisions, it allows the rest of our team to make good decisions. So he did a great job navigating the game, getting the ball organized and finding the balance of scoring and facilitating.”
Then there's Holiday, who reappeared in a big way against the Knicks. After dropping almost nothing but zeroes in the fourth quarter in Indiana, he came out of the box with 11 of his 16 points against the Knicks coming in the first half. His 16/6/5 night was matched on the defensive end by two steals and a blocked shot.
“I love this guy. I think it shows his character and his leadership,” Porzingis said of Holiday? “He's not forcing anything if it's not there. He's going to make the right play for us. And tonight, he was just being aggressive and he was effective and was making plays and scoring the ball. And that's what we need from everybody. He's just setting an example. Ok, maybe his stats are a little bit down this year, but I think it speaks more about he's willing to sacrifice."
And then there's Porzingis, who opened up the game hitting his first seven shots to finish with 23 points.
“He’s special. A guy that size who can do the things he can do on both sides of the ball, it’s a great weapon to have,” White said. “Obviously he started the game off knocking down a couple 3s, getting to the paint. He can do literally anything on the basketball court. Having him back out there was huge for us.”
With three days off after subpar performances, it’s easy to stew in the juices of failure and let things fester. It’s pretty easy to get caught in one’s own head, replaying bad decisions, and getting mired in the muck.
“Obviously you think about it, especially when you’ve got all this time off which is rare in the NBA,” White said. “But after a couple days I moved on and just trying not to have two bad games in a row. And I played a lot better today.”
The Celtics have been able to avoid those consecutive stinkers, at least the kind that lead to losses, for most of the season. Yes, they did have a stretch of road games that weren’t their best, but they still managed to win. When things seem to get bad for Boston, they find their way through to the other side pretty quickly.
“Each game is gonna be different,” Porzingis said. “I think what’s cool again is we don’t care who it is. Nobody cares. It could be D. White, boom, we’re just gonna keep looking for him, or that person is gonna stay aggressive and we don’t care. We want to be aggressive when it’s there and that’s it, play for each other.”
Keep playing for each other, and the Celtics will continue to pull themselves out of potential tailspins before they happen. Keep doing that and they're going to be very tough to beat in a seven game series.