BSJ Game Report: Celtics 118, Sixers 110 - Tatum dominates in massive comeback

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

IN A NUTSHELL

The Celtics came out cold and Tyrese Maxey went off for 16, giving Philly an eight-point lead. That lead grew to 17 because the Sixers shot 10-19 from 3 and Boston went into halftime shooting 7-26. The Celtics defense fell asleep for most of the third but they put it together for three minutes to cut it to 14 heading into the fourth, which Boston dominated. They outscored the Sixers by 22, running away with an eight-point win.

Box Score

HEADLINES

- 15 minutes of effort: The Celtics were down 26, 90-64 with 2:56 to go in the third quarter. They outscored the Sixers by 34 the rest of the way. The Celtics defense looked atrocious to that point, but then they only gave up 20 points the rest of the way. 

- Jayson Tatum takes over: Tatum finished with 35 points, but he scored 25 of those in the second half. He was 10-14 after halftime, hitting 4-5 from 3. Guys would kill for his second-half numbers: 25 points, eight assists, and five rebounds. Tatum owned the second half and the fourth quarter. 

- Winning streak: The Celtics have now won three games in a row for the first time wins over Toronto, Minnesota, and Houston December 31 through January 3. They've now won six of eight, so they've stabilized a little. 

TURNING POINT 

Derrick White hit a pair of 3-pointers to help start Boston’s 16-4 run to close out the third. The Celtics run for 14:56 was 54-20. It took Boston 31:20 to score their first 54 points. 

THINGS I LIKED

- The comeback: The 26-point comeback matches the biggest comeback in the league this season. What I loved about it was the defense, which really amounted to a little bit of effort. They held the Sixers to 30.4% shooting over that 15-minute run, allowing Maxey just two free throws. The Celtics were 9-33 from 3 heading into that run and 12-16 during it. The Celtics outscored the Sixers 36-3 from 3 over those 15 minutes. 

- Jayson Tatum. He dominated, especially in that 15-minute stretch where he had 16 points, five rebounds, seven assists, and a blocked shot. The Sixers tried doubling him and he made passes, and then he knocked down the looks he got when he was single-covered. This was a true takeover. He finished with 35 points and 11 assists, making this the first time he’s gone back-to-back games with 10 more assists. 

Jaylen Brown: Both he and Tatum played the whole second half. Brown was also really good in the comeback, scoring eight points on 4-6 shooting with three assists and three rebounds. His defense went from awful to amazing as well. Brown finished with 21 points, 10 rebounds, and six assists. 

Derrick White: A perfect 4-4 from 3 over the last 15 minutes. It salvaged was started as a rough shooting night from him. He was 1-5 to start the game, which tells you why shooters should keep shooting. Getting one to fall might be the trigger for a hot streak. 

Sam Hauser: He was 3-3 in the comeback and 4-7 in the game. 

Luke Kornet: Joe Mazzulla adjusted from double-big lineups in the first half to single-big, and he sat Al Horford in the second half in favor of Kornet. 

“Just studying the shots at halftime, I felt like if we went to one big and let Sam loose a little bit that he’d be able to get some more open looks,” Mazzulla said. It worked. 

Kristaps Porzingis’ defense: Five more blocks for him in this game. 

THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE

- The pre-comeback defense and energy: Especially in the third quarter, where Boston was lazy and horribly undisciplined and just getting torched off the dribble. Once again, their energy and defensive effort was nowhere close to where it needed to be. 

Credit the Celtics for turning it around, but everyone on that team knows that it shouldn’t have taken such a monster effort to come back. The Celtics put themselves in a position where they needed to be almost perfect to win the game. Amazingly, they were. Maybe the basketball Gods were too busy trying to figure out why Luka Doncic got traded to pay attention. 

- Complaining to the refs: Jaylen Brown was worst offender in this game. As I noted during the live blog, “A player not getting back so he can argue with the ref pisses me off. In all of NBA history, a ref has never changed his mind because of it. All it does is hurt your own team.” 

Luckily, Brown agrees with that sentiment.  

“I think we're letting officiating and all other stuff, the zone … just play basketball,” he said after the game. “Don't complain. Just keep shooting the ball and then it’ll work itself out. And it did. So once we stopped complaining, once I stopped complaining, we was good.”

HIGHLIGHTS

ONE TAKE KARALIS WILL PROBABLY REGRET LATER

- Maybe the Celtics ARE capable of flipping a switch

It's the one question we have been asking all this time. Will the Celtics really be able to flip the switch when they need to. 

Well, this was one hell of an emphatic “yes, they can.” The question now is whether they feel more empowered to relax and flip the switch later in games, or if they feel embarrassed by the effort and they’ll play better so they don’t have to. 

In many ways, this was simply a good team coasting and then turning it on late against a bad team. Maybe this was an extreme example of it, but ultimately, we’ve seen this kind of game a million times in the NBA. It’s not exactly fun until they do turn it around, but good teams do this all the time. 

Honestly, I don’t know which is better: this kind of win, or going up by 34 and watching the Sixers slowly chip away at the lead. Ideally, they’d go up 30 with a monster first quarter and play even the rest of the way. 

Either way, the switch-flipping thing worked for them this time. They’ve proven it’s possible. Now let’s hope they just file that away instead of making it a habit. 

Next up: The Celtics wrap up their road trip in Cleveland on Tuesday night