Tuesday’s Game 1 victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers was a dominant one for the Boston Celtics. They managed to win in near wire-to-wire fashion, only trailing briefly in the first quarter.
This game wasn’t really ever close. But, it could’ve been.
In fact, I’m not entirely convinced that this is a game that last season’s team wins, or at least controls to the degree that we saw last night.
Now that it’s #DifferentHere, it seems like the Cs play with their food far less frequently. In the series opener against the Cavs, Boston did what they’ve done for the entire season and maintained focus in key spots.
Cleveland didn’t look great by any means, but there were stretches in this game where they tried mounting a comeback effort.
They never got there.
Boston started the game on a 10-2 run while the Cavs couldn’t buy a basket. The visitors then proceeded to drill several 3-pointers to earn a 23-21 lead with 5:31 left in the opening frame.
Then, the king of clutch himself, Luke Kornet checked into the game. On his very first defensive possession, he was the driving force behind a four-point swing in the Cs’ favor. Kornet rejected Isaac Okoro’s driving layup attempt and tapped a baby outlet pass to Jaylen Brown, who ran the floor and hit a layup of his own.
Minutes later, he logged his second block of the night when he rejected Donovan Mitchell on a drive.
The paint presence that the big man brought with him when he checked into the game helped Boston re-establish themselves in this one. He prevented two scorers, who had it going early on, from seeing a few easy shots find the bottom of the net.
After the win, Brown had praise for Kornet’s intelligence and defensive prowess.
“He sees and reads the game, he’s an intelligent basketball player… he contests shots at the rim, he does a good job of just doing his job day in and day out,” he said (h/t CLNS Media).
Brown was clutch in his own right. He helped the Celtics set the tone in the game, right from the jump. The Georgia native ripped off a 15-point HEATER of a first quarter, burying 5-of-6 (5-5, if you exclude his end-of-quarter heave) attempts from the floor. He didn’t try and do too much either. All of his shot attempts were in spots where he was comfortable, in the flow of the offense, and under control.
The scoring clinic didn’t stop there. He helped cap this win off when he had a mini-explosion to start the fourth quarter. Brown’s eight quick points helped the Celtics build their 15-point lead up to 24 within the opening four minutes of the period. His killer instinct is exactly the type of thing that some people think this team lacks. Instead of letting the Cavs hang around any longer, Brown put them to bed.
There was a period in this game where Cleveland did seem to be hanging around for a bit too long, though. Boston struggled to balloon their lead in the third. Every time you’d look at the score the Cavs would be within 10-13, which isn’t as luxurious of a lead as it was back in the day.
Mitchell was the driving force behind his squad’s offense for the entire game, really, but definitely in the third. He poured in 16 points, played all 12 minutes of the frame, and looked absolutely unstoppable in the closing minutes.
Yet, the Celtics found themselves up 15 at the end of the quarter thanks to Derrick White (and Payton Pritchard’s buzzer-beater).
White went bucket for bucket with Mitchell and scored 14 of his own. The Buffalo sank four TOUGH threes to keep Cleveland from making any sort of headway. Like, these were superstar shots. He wasn’t just the beneficiary of good drive-and-kick offense, no, he was sinking step-back “hand in the face” daggers.
I mean, LOOK AT THIS!
The tremendous thing about White is that he remains multi-dimensional regardless of how hot he is. He was tied with Jayson Tatum with a team-high 5 assists and, of course, brought it on defense all night.
“I love the way he’s been playing on both ends of the floor,” Tatum said of White (H/T our very own Noa Dalzell).
Jayson Tatum on Derrick White, who hit 7 of 12 threes tonight:
“I love the way he’s been playing on both ends of the floor.”
“We’ve got a lot of different ways to win a game and I would assume that tough for the other team to kinda try and figure that out.” pic.twitter.com/RyOTiz4qWP
— Noa Dalzell (@NoaDalzellNBA) May 8, 2024
There’s been plenty of (deserved) “hey, the Celtics really aren’t great in the ‘clutch’” talk for the past few seasons. While some of it is certainly valid, a lot of the focus is on the end of games.
Don’t get me wrong, the final minutes of a close game are absolutely important. However, there are many clutch moments sprinkled throughout every single game, regardless of how close the final score ends up being.
The Celtics did exactly what they needed to do during those moments in order to keep the lead from slipping away on Tuesday.
That’s clutch.
