There may have been no one happier to see Jayson Tatum’s last-second 3-pointer fall Saturday night than the TD Garden Bull Gang.
The crew was watching their second overtime of the day, after the Bruins and Blues needed extra time, and the thought of having to watch a third was about to make a long day a bit longer. Lucky for them, Tatum’s second chance at a dramatic ending fell through the net.
“Man, I missed so many shots in the second half, I was bound to hit one,” he said in his walk-off interview, with the bull gang already taking the initial steps to flip the arena back to hockey in the background.
The one he hit saved the Celtics from another embarrassment. They had already suffered the indignity of losing to a bad Atlanta team without its best players. To lose to the 2-11 Raptors, at home, just a few days later would have made this a tough postgame to face.
“Sometimes the game is ugly and it's not going how you want it, game’s a little messed up, you’re not hitting shots, certain guys are out,” Tatum said. “How do you still figure out a way to win? So it's, for sure, rewarding walking out of a game like this and knowing we figured it out.”
Instead of hanging heads, the locker room was full of guys sipping on Derrick White’s new eponymous beer figuring out which football game they were going to on an off Sunday. The difference between laughter and silence is often one defensive play or one shot falling. The Celtics did not look good on Saturday night, but they made enough good plays to earn their reward.
“Obviously, it keeps us on our toes more than anything,” Al Horford said. “Even though we had success last year, this year, we have to figure out how to get things done, how to win, and Toronto played a heck of a game. I feel like every team we're playing against is giving us their best shot. For us, it's just continuing to find ways. I think it is good. But I feel like all this stuff will make us better.”
It’s not like these guys have to re-learn the game of basketball, but things do change from season to season.
“The game is being played a little differently this season in the NBA,” Horford said. “I feel like people are shooting more 3s now. People are playing more of a style like we play, and it's more and more teams. So I think that's an adjustment. I think it is. For us, it's figuring out how to win with this new style of play and how people are playing now.
“We're having success and we're probably not winning like we're expected to. But the biggest thing is that we're finding ways to get it done. And we know that we still have a lot of room to grow as a group, so that, to me, is encouraging."
The Celtics are trendsetters, and even they are pushing the limits of 3-point shooting this season. They took 61 3-pointers against the Raptors. They’d never taken 60 3-pointers in a game before this season and now they’ve done it twice in 14 games.
Toronto hit 50 of 98 shots, a killer 51% from the field, and they lost. They demolished Boston in the paint, but the Celtics won because Tatum hit their 21st 3-pointer on their 61st attempt while the Raptors were 9-23.
“Teams are not beating us at the 3-point line,” Jaylen Brown said. “It’s not like we want to encourage teams to shoot threes or anything, but we definitely don’t want to just keep giving up layup after layup after layup. So we’re going to figure some stuff out.”
The Celtics are willing to live with a lot of two-pointers. Nine of Jakob Poeltl’s makes came from a part of the paint Boston will somewhat concede. Him shooting 9-11 from that spot and 16-19 overall is both a risk the team will take with their game plan and an area of adjustment.
“You want to limit those shots, but I think there's a clear understanding on the vets what we were living with,” Horford said. “But at the same time with those shots, we want to contest them, we're hoping that he misses. But ultimately, we know that that's taking away the 3-point shots."
It was a similar strategy Boston used in the playoffs against Cleveland. Evan Mobley was killing Horford individually, but the Celtics were winning the games because of the math. Poeltl pushed Boston’s strategy to the edge, but nine 3-pointers isn’t going to win many teams many games. The Celtics will get a chance to put that strategy to the test again on Tuesday when the possibly still-undefeated Cavs come to town.
And just because the Hawks and Raptors gave Boston trouble, it doesn’t mean the Cavs will too. It also doesn’t mean they won’t. The Celtics are working through their ups and downs in the early going this season and one is not always indicative of the other. The Celtics could win or lose on Tuesday by 30, but what happened in this game against Toronto won’t really be a factor in that result.
Each individual game is its own thing for the Celtics. The things that need fixing can be fixed quickly. It’s just a matter of fine-tuning. The real challenge is in the fine tuning itself, especially against teams they feel don’t require the most finely-tuned performance.
“It’s us versus us,” Brown said. “It’s about just being a better version of ourselves, coming to play, not going through the motions, being physical on every catch, owning your space, just not skipping over the details. I think that’s just the challenge. The details of the game make the biggest difference, the smallest things. And we’ve really gotta continue to focus on those if we want to be a good team.”
Of course, the Celtics have already been the best team, though that hardly means much right now. Unless the Celtics are allowed to bring their monstrous new rings onto the court in order to blind and/or bludgeon their opponents, all that title does is draw the absolute best of their opponents … and maybe dull Boston’s edge from time to time. It might take some time to sharpen it again, but the Celtics will be fine if the knife still cuts.
“What we did last year was extremely tough, and what we're trying to do this year is even tougher, and I think over the course of an 82-game season, we can learn from each and every game,” Tatum said. “They just put a lot of pressure on us tonight. And every night is not going to go how you expect it to. As long as you figure out a way to win, however it looks, winning is the most important.”