BSJ Game Report: Celtics 129, Pacers 124 - C's clamp down in fourth to avoid collapse

Everything you need to know about the Celtics win over the Pacers, with BSJ insight and analysis

Boston came out with purpose, moving the ball amazingly well in the first quarter and getting 15 points from a scorching-hot Derrick White to build a 10-point lead. The lead grew to 20 at one point but settled at 15 thanks to Jayson Tatum’s 19 in the second. The Celtics' lead evaporated in the third quarter, primarily due to second-chance points. They settled down in the fourth, though, actually grabbed some rebounds, and salted the game away with some tough defense.

Box Score

HEADLINES

- Survival: They ain’t all gonna be pretty. We’re deep into grind it out season and that's what the Celtics are doing. They came out playing beautiful basketball in the first quarter, lost a little off the fast ball in the second, and then it fell apart in the third. The beauty of a game like this is that they figured it out in the fourth and were able to land the plane. 

- Rebounding: That all said, their rebounding didn’t do them any favors. They gave up 19 offensive rebounds and 31 second-chance points. They lost that battle by 25, and the result was Indiana putting up 108 shots to Boston’s 87. It took a 47% shooting night from 3 compared to Indiana’s 31% to make up for that. 

“Their pace puts a ton of pressure, and you're constantly in rotations, and any time you're in rotations, you can't find a guy in particular,” Joe Mazzulla said. “I felt like we played hard, I just didn't think we executed, and they put a ton of pressure with their offense … A few of them were effort plays for sure, but the rest of them were a byproduct of their motion offense, and us trying to be in shifts, and constantly moving us, and that team, that's a hard-playing team.”

- Mental battle: Mazzulla talked about getting a sense of entitlement about Boston’s easy wins out of our heads, and said yesterday that he hopes the Celtics blow even more leads to hammer that point home. 

Well, congratulations, Joe. When Jrue Holiday was told about his coach liking that they blew a lead, he said “he does. He does like it” and laughed. 

Mazzulla just loves opportunities to learn something about his team or himself. This was one of those times. More on that separately.

TURNING POINT

I’m going to choose the start of the fourth quarter. The third was a pile of garbage, but they put that behind them to start the fourth on a 14-5 run. It was a lead they were able to hold onto somewhat comfortably for most of the quarter. It got dicey in the last couple of minutes (more on that in a second), but they never lost that lead 

THINGS I LIKED

- Keeping it together: The Celtics have spent the last few weeks testing the glass-half-full/half-empty mentality. But despite the wilder swings of recent games, Boston is still pulling them out.

“We've been a lot better than we have been in previous years where we've been able to put teams away,” Jaylen Brown said. “We've had only a handful of times, teams that have come back and found a way to win against us, even if it is a big lead or so. In the past, a lot of you guys remember some of those results and then losses. I think it's a step forward that in those moments of adversity that we still have found ways to win.”

- The Jays … again: Jayson Tatum finished with a 30/7/7 night, most of which came in the second quarter where he was almost perfect. Brown chipped in 25 of his own along with six rebounds and two assists. He also had two steals while Tatum had a steal and two blocks. Tatum only turned it over twice while Brown had none.

- Jrue Holiday: Another wildly efficient night for him, scoring 17 points on 6-8 shooting. Tack on five rebounds, four assists, three blocks, a steal, and just one turnover and it was a pretty great night. He took some audacious shots, though. A couple of them had me chuckling because they were wild decisions that paid off. 

- Derrick White: He came out blistering hot, carrying over his fourth quarter from last night into the first half of this game. 19 of his 25 came in the first half where he shot 7-10 (3-4 3pt). 

- Neemias Queta: A solid contribution with Al Horford out on the back-to-back. I will say that assessments of Queta tend to be colored by a lack of expectations. His one rebound is not good enough, but he did a good job challenging some shots at the rim, finishing with two blocked shots.

- Derrick White’s foul with :49 to go: The Pacers were on a 6-0 run to make things very interesting late in the fourth quarter. Boston’s nine-point lead was down to three when Buddy Hield read a post up by Kristaps Porzingis, stole the ball, and started a fast break. 

White understood the situation and that Boston had a foul to give, so he took it there to stop the break and get Boston to set their defense. That's a high basketball IQ decision that led to a Boston clamping down and forcing a :24 violation. 

“He’s a genius player,” Mazzulla said. “We’ve missed our foul-to-give call on the last three times we tried to use it, and credit to him for recognizing that and taking advantage of it. Genius play.”

THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE

- Kristaps Porzingis: Probably his worst game of the season. He was pushed off his spot a little too often and he was successfully targeted by Pascal Siakam so often that I’m surprised they went away from it. I’m surprised to see the 12 rebounds because I didn’t think he rebounded all that well. But when you’re 7’3”, you’re gonna pile up a few, I guess. 

- Offensive rebounding: Yes I’m mentioning it again. I hated it that much.

- A 45-40 second quarter: Holy smokes that's a lot of points. I don’t like giving up that many in any quarter, and the fact that both teams were equally bad at stopping the other just felt annoying more than enjoyable.

HIGHLIGHTS

ONE TAKE KARALIS WILL PROBABLY REGRET LATER

- Give the Pacers the credit they deserve. 

The Celtics were consistent with one message after the game: The Pacers will make you look bad if you’re not careful. 

“They move around like crazy, play chaotic,” Porzingis said. “They get those second-chance points and it looks really bad. And it kills the energy, kills the crowd, kills our energy. So it’s tough and ugly to play against them.”

Even without Tyrese Haliburton, who was on a minutes restriction and left the game after playing 25, they blitzed Boston and made the Celtics look lost. 

“They were playing fast, they were playing random, they got a lot of offensive rebounds,” Holiday said. “Obviously shooting a lot of 3s, they get weird bounces off the rim, 50-50 balls we need to win. But again that’s how they play and they’ve been playing that way the whole season.”

I think this is an important lesson in the “there are two NBA teams out there” concept that so often gets missed. We all focus on what Boston is or isn’t doing as if they exists in a vacuum and everything is their choice. A lot of it is out of their control because there is another team on the floor trying to beat them. 

And the Pacers are a pretty good, well-coached team. 

Boston should have, as Mazzulla said, probably cleared half the rebounds they gave up to the Pacers. That's a problem that needs to be addressed. But half those rebounds were also the result of a team that feasts on the chaos it creates. Sometimes the opponent has something to do with how things are going on the floor.

Next Up: The Celtics host the Lakers on Thursday night