If I get the good fortune to write another book about a championship season, I hope everyone will excuse me if I leave this win in Toronto out of it.
There were stretches of this game that may not legally be allowed to be called “basketball.” The game got so frantic at one point, taking notes on it was like Taggart trying to write down all vicious criminals and gunslingers in the west dictated by Hedley Lamarr. Scottie Barnes spent part of the game looking like he might transform into the Incredible Hulk, clapping in people’s faces and yelling after every basket, and then he just sort of stopped.
The Raptors probably thought they could steal this game from a team missing four of its top nine players. Instead, it seems to have worked out better for the Celtics. By going into the game shorthanded, they were forced to play harder than they might have otherwise.
“Next man up mentality,” Payton Pritchard told NBC Sports Boston. “Even with everybody out, it doesn't matter. We got to get the W … we know how to play off of each other, and I feel like we do it really well. We did a good job tonight, just being undersized and figuring out another way to win.”
The Celtics fell into Toronto’s trap of helter-skelter basketball in the second quarter, losing a double-digit lead for 10 seconds before getting the lead back for good. The Raptors did all they could, but the Celtics were able to flip the game back to their own pace and take control back. Once the Celtics stopped playing like their shorts were on fire, they were able to build their lead back up, hold off every Raptors run, and leave town with their sixth straight win.
“I think what separates winning streaks and separates yourself in the standings and as a team is winning close games and then winning games when you're not fully healthy,” Joe Mazzulla said a couple of days ago, maybe foreshadowing this game a bit. “It's doing the things that are important to winning close games, especially fourth-quarter execution, ending quarters better, and then being able to win games when you don't have everybody. That's a big thing, because it shows how important the role guys are, the bench guys are.”
One of the strengths of the Celtics is that on a night like this, they still started Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Derrick White, Sam Hauser, and Torrey Craig. That's two All-NBA guys, a borderline All-Star, a 40% 3-point shooter, and a solid veteran. Tatum’s lineups outscored the Raptors by 20, so the rest of the role guys and bench guys Mazzulla talked about just had to hold down the fort.
Baylor Scheierman played 10:36 and was +2. Neemias Queta, despite foul trouble all night, was only a -1. Jordan Walsh played 5:21 and was -4. Personally, I consider these tiny +/- numbers basically even basketball susceptible to make/miss variance. The film session will be kind to all of those guys because they hustled and fought for possessions. The Maine guys gave the Celtics exactly what they needed until the few main guys who played could come in and finish the job.
“That's the expectation. You have to come in every day and do your job and be ready to impact winning,” Mazzulla said after beating the Raptors. “You gotta be ready to go ... everybody that got out there today impacted winning. That's the most important thing.”
This is the perfect time to dip into Boston’s depth. With a win in the books over New York in an ABC game, a big game coming up Friday against Cleveland, and an ‘oh by the way this game against Detroit is actually going to be a tough one’ waiting for them Wednesday night, dipping into the well against the Raptors made sense. Toronto is a try-hard team with some talent, but they're still not good. The Celtics have try-hard guys with some talent at the end of their bench, so using them to match Toronto’s effort is a smart way to go.
This game was never going to be a shining example of Celtics basketball in terms of X’s and O’s, but it is a nice example of why this Celtics team is still the favorite to win it all. They are good enough to play without half their rotation and ultimately come away with a double-digit win, all while saving those other guys for a tough matchup on the back-to-back.
“It’s just a mindset,” Tatum said. “We’re a championship team. We figure it out. Guys is out, we got to go small, first day we’re playing zone, doing different things. We just figure out a way to win.”