The Boston Celtics may not have won the NBA’s first In-Season Tournament, but they remain the cream of the crop in the Eastern Conference. That was a point they seemed determined to remind the league of on Tuesday night against the playoff hopeful Cleveland Cavaliers. Rebounding from a slow start, the Celtics outshot an energetic Cleveland offense and dominated the Cavaliers in crunch time, scoring an impressive 120-113 win.
Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Kristaps Porzingis combined for 71 points and perfect 22-of-22 free throw shooting, while Derrick White and Jrue Holiday rounded out the starting five with eight made threes and defensive tenacity that seemed to intensify as the game went on. Donovan Mitchell led the game with 29 points, but managed just two across the final quarter-and-a-half of the game, while backcourt partner Darius Garland added 26.
To say the Celtics looked as if they were sleepwalking to start this game would be underselling it. After Brown scored the game’s opening bucket, the Cavaliers rattled off a 15-2 run to put Boston in a deep hole very early. They picked apart the Celtics’ defense with passing that appeared two steps ahead at all times. Indeed, it was more than six minutes of in-game time before a Celtic besides Brown even found themselves on the scoreboard, when Porzingis put himself in the points column with a pair of free throws.
Brown’s strong start was enough to keep the Celtics afloat until his teammates awoke, however. After he scored 10 of the team’s first 12 points, Payton Pritchard connected on a three, becoming the second Celtic to convert a field goal. The lid seemed to come off the basket from there, and after a dreadful start, Boston found themselves trailing by just 10 points entering the second quarter, 31-21.
Pritchard brought a madcap energy to the proceedings tonight that the Celtics sorely needed. After joining Brown on the scoreboard in the first quarter, he hit his second three-pointer of the night early in the second. His high-hustle style of play bore some fruit against a smaller Cleveland backcourt that couldn’t exploit his size. Along with six points, he dished two assists, swiped two steals and blocked a shot in his eight first half minutes tonight.
Also involved in Boston’s surge was Tatum, who started to find a scoring groove in the second quarter. He got himself going downhill into the teeth of the Cleveland defense and earned himself two trips to the free throw line and a strong dunk early in the quarter. A foul-happy Cleveland defense helped them along, with Boston piling up 17 free throws to the Cavaliers’ two at the half. Even as the Cavaliers’ offense continued to score, their lead evaporated, and the Celtics trailed by just one point at the halftime break, 60-59.
The game’s leading scorer was not Tatum or Brown, but Mitchell. The 27-year combo guard thrived against Boston’s unusually sluggish perimeter defense, piling up 27 points, 6 rebounds and 3 assists by the midway point of the third quarter. The Celtics keyed in on him as the third quarter wore on, however, and his production slowed drastically across the remainder of the game. He scored just two points the rest of the way, substantially changing the dynamic of this game.
Cleveland again went another sizeable run in the second half, outscoring the Celtics 13-2 midway through the third quarter behind the play of Mitchell and active ball movement on offense. To this point, the Cavaliers had enjoyed a substantial advantage from three for the evening, but Boston’s shooters started to find some swagger as the clock ticked down in the third quarter, erasing the strides Cleveland had made in the early minutes. Boston connected on seven three-pointers over the final six minutes of the quarter, fending off an amped-up Cleveland offense to enter the final frame with a 94-92 lead.
This was a high-energy affair, arguably one of the most impressive offensive showdowns of the year, and it felt as though it was cruising towards a spectacular finish as the fourth quarter began. Neither side was able to gain more than a one-possession advantage on the other as the clock ticked onward, an almost-exhausting progression of big-time shot-making and physical defensive play.
The Celtics, however, were determined to avoid a close finish. Two free throws by Porzingis — Boston’s 23rd and 24th — gave the Celtics’ their first two-possession advantage of the fourth quarter with just over four minutes remaining in regulation, 110-106. Tatum followed with a step-back three-pointer, his second of the game, to push the advantage to seven. Sensing blood in the water, the Celtics found some clutch time swagger in the ensuing minutes, ultimately putting a dagger in the Cavaliers with a three-pointer from White pushed the lead to 10 with 2:30 left to play.
Next up, the Celtics will be feeling some deja vu, as they host the Cavaliers at the TD Garden for the second consecutive game, this Thursday at 7:30 PM on NBA TV.
