BSJ Game Report: Celtics 138, Mavericks 110 - Celtics break away late for 10th straight win

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

IN A NUTSHELL

Boston’s 3-pointers were falling early, and they put up 38 first-quarter points, but they allowed 32, half of them scored by Luka Doncic. Jayson Tatum woke up from a slow start to pace the Celtics in a second quarter that saw the teams trade runs, but end up with Boston up seven. He dropped 16 in the third as the C’s added five to the lead, and Jaylen Brown fueled an early fourth-quarter run to go up 18. The Celtics poured it on from there and ran away for their 10th straight win, the longest winning streak in the NBA this season.

Box Score

HEADLINES

- Combustibility on offense: NBA games are long, and the Celtics' ability to put up big numbers in a hurry makes it so any given stretch of about two to three minutes can be the difference even in games where they're not playing their best. The Celtics won this game by 28 but it was very much in doubt heading into the fourth quarter. Doncic was having an MVP kind of night, the Mavs were hanging around, and then suddenly … BOOM. More on this later. 

- Star power: Tatum, Brown, and Kristaps Porzingis combined for 81 points. Tatum let everyone else, handle the scoring at first, and then he got going in the second and third quarters. Porzingis kind of held it all together for a while. Brown filled in some of the gaps with a few buckets in a row. The Celtics had seven guys in double figures, but it was the three stars who did the most damage. 

- Tillman contributes: He got 15 real minutes of play to really start getting his feet wet. It wasn’t exactly perfect, but he looks like a guy who can actually become a part of the rotation. 

“Yeah, X looked good out there, man. It's like, he fit right in,” Brown said

after the game. “He came right in and made contributions on defense, got a few rebounds, got some stops. Offense, you could tell he got a good feel for the game. A good screen setter. He got big hands so I was able to find him a few times on the baseline and hit him in some of those seam passes and just reading the defense and how they were guarding. X looked real good tonight.”

TURNING POINT

The Mavericks cut the Boston lead to 81-79 with 6:02 to go in the third quarter. The Celtics answered with a 14-3 run to make it a 13-point game. A 10-4 run at the start of the fourth put it out of reach. 

THINGS I LIKED

- Patience: This will be the theme of my second piece, but the Celtics have grown into a patient team that doesn’t overreact to opponent runs. They look like they're maturing into a team that knows a 14-4 run is right around the corner, so they just need to muddle through whatever rough patches to get to that opening. 

- Kristaps Porzingis: There were a couple of stretches where the game got bogged down and the answer was getting it to Porzingis as either the mismatch or the go-between. He’s going to be such a difference maker, and I think part of the reason they can be patient is because they know he’s almost always going to have a mismatch they can go to. 

- Jaylen Brown: 25 points on 55/40/100 splits with seven rebounds, five assists, and zero turnovers. Sign me up for that kind of offensive night every game. The highlight was this wild, 360, lefty finish:

“To be honest, I have no idea what made me do that. You know, still a head-scratcher,” he said. “If I would have missed it, you know, probably would have looked bad, but when you got, the ability to jump and you got some hang time, you got a split second, you got a little extra time to make a decision. I still have some time in the air and I just flipped it up with my left.”

- Jayson Tatum’s recovery: He was not playing well early on. He looked kind of lost and even a little lazy or tired or something. He was on his way to a bad night, and then he snapped out of it midway through the second and he had a spectacular third quarter. The end result was a 32 point, eight rebound, three assist night on 52.6/55.6/100 splits. The only thing in his stat line that gives away a tough start was his four turnovers, all of which came in the first half. He had 21 points on 60/71.4/100 splits after halftime. 

- Derrick White, Al Horford, Jrue Holiday: 13, 12, and 11 points respectively but more than that, they each made the Mavs pay for losing them. On a night where the stars put up 81 combined, these three combined for 36 points, 17 rebounds, 18 assists, five blocks, three steals, and they were a combined 8-14 from 3. These are the guys who sacrifice the most for the Celtics to be as good as they are, and nights like this where they are deadly in different spots is what makes Boston so dangerous. 

- This Holiday 3-pointer: I'll let Brian Scalabrine handle this one. 

THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE

- Early rebounding: They gave up way too many second chances in the first half, allowing the Mavs to hang around.

- Defending Luka Doncic: He’s a megastar, so 37 points, 12 rebounds and 11 assists is going to happen no matter what you do some nights. 

“I didn’t think we did a tremendous job of guarding him. I thought we worked hard effort-wise on the game plan, we didn’t execute it tremendously all the time,” Mazzulla said. “It’s very hard to watch one guy play and get scored on, and I think it says more about our guys for their ability to trust our system and the game plan that we have to be able to work through that. And I think that’s kind of what helped us kind of stay the course, our guys’ ability to continue to play hard, execute, stay the course on both ends of the court.”

HIGHLIGHTS

TWO TAKES KARALIS WILL PROBABLY REGRET LATER

- Xavier Tillman had a nice debut

I’m not counting his garbage time minutes. This was his real debut. 

I had said before the game that I wanted to see him get more run, especially in a second-quarter stint with Al Horford. He got exactly that in this game, and it worked. Not only is this a combination they might need to go to at some point, Horford was the right guy to help him get through some of the newness. 

“Having the IQ and skill level that he does and the experience and the wiseness will allow me to kind of like play free and then he can kind of guide me in the best ways to help the team versus me have to overthink everything,” Tillman said. “I feel like Al can help me a lot as far as like when coach draws up the play or when he comes out with a defensive scheme I’m like, ‘Al, what did he say?’ Or, ‘Al, what are we doing right here?’”

These are important minutes for Tillman. He needs to get past the “what did he say” portion of his acclimation process and get as comfortable as possible in a short amount of time. He can be very important, not only as insurance, but if Boston wants to go to a different look without sacrificing too much.

“He’s a guy that can help our switchability and still have size,” Mazzulla said. “That’s one of the things that I’m grateful for with this team, is they keep an open mind and they have an understanding that we do what’s best for the team and what impacts winning, and so we felt like that was the right thing to go to tonight to continue to switch them, and it’s a credit to him and a credit to the rest of the guys for understanding that’s what’s most important.”

That last part might have been a message to Luke Kornet, who was a DNP in this game. Kornet will still get appropriate minutes, but getting Tillman involved is important. 

“It helps me find my rhythm and be comfortable faster versus me going out there and trying to figure it out,” Tillman said. “Like I know what to expect now because I’ve been watching.”

- I’m done with the Kyrie Irving stuff

Fans want to boo, so I’m not going to tell them to stop. People love sports villains and Kyrie has done plenty to earn that hate, so there's really no stopping it, especially when he’s on the losing side and people want to rub it in. 

But if it was me? I’d move on from it. I think indifference to him would be worse than “Kyrie sucks” chants. I feel like it hurts more to know your ex has moved on.

“We all know what happened. But that was a while ago, a couple years,” Tatum said. “I have a great relationship with him. A few of us that are still here that played with him have a great relationship with him. We've all moved on from it, but you understand that fans are passionate and things like that. So I guess that is to be expected. But none of the players have any animosity towards Ky or anything like that.”

I’d like to be done with it. That story is over. And what better way to send the message that he’s no longer a threat or even a thought than to not care anymore?

Next up: The Celtics take on the Golden State Warriors Sunday afternoon at 3:30