For most of the night, Jrue Holiday was relatively quiet.
Holiday, who was questionable with an illness earlier in the day, decided to tough it out but was clearly not his usual spry self.
Then in the final minute, Holiday dug deep and shifted the trajectory of not only the game, but also the series. Holiday delivered a massive go-ahead and-one with 38.2 seconds left, secured a huge steal with 3.1 seconds remaining and hit two clutch free throws with 1.1 left.
“I’m glad we got him,” Jayson Tatum to sideline reporter Lisa Salters. “Jrue’s a hell of a competitor.”
The Celtics outlasted the Pacers, 114-111, in a back-and-forth Game 3 that featured plenty of drama and intrigue. Indiana gave Boston everything it could handle Monday night, but the Celtics earned their biggest win of the season in impressive fashion.
Tatum fueled the Celtics with 36 points, Jaylen Brown added 24 and Al Horford contributed 23 on seven 3-pointers.
Andrew Nembhard poured in 32 for the Pacers in Tyrese Haliburton’s absence, T.J. McConnell scored 23 off the bench and Pascal Siakam and Myles Turner chipped in 22 apiece.
Boston handed Indiana its first home loss of the playoffs.
The Celtics jumped out to a 16-9 lead three minutes in, fueled by hot shooting from Tatum and Horford. Boston started 6 for 6 before a miss, and Derrick White set the tone defensively by acrobatically swatting a Myles Turner shot.
Indiana methodically chipped away, making a conscious effort to push the ball and attack the basket. Siakam spearheaded a 16-8 surge to end the quarter, as the Pacers sliced the Celtics’ lead to 32-31 through 1.
Tatum finished the quarter with 15, Siakam had 11 and Indiana racked up a whopping 26 points in the paint. It was no coincidence, either, as Indiana systematically attacked a smaller Celtics team with conviction and purpose.
At first, it appeared as though the Celtics had the formula for withstanding the Pacers’ inevitable spike in energy. Then in the second quarter, everything went awry for Boston, as Indiana dropped 38 points to build a 69-57 halftime advantage that felt like more.
Nembhard and McConnell were the primary catalysts Both did the vast majority of their damage inside and in the midrange, breaking down some of the Celtics’ best defenders off the dribble with relative ease.
The Celtics may win a championship, but they played far from championship-caliber defense in the second quarter.
The Pacers relied on their frenetic style and dictated the tempo the bulk of the quarter. They finished the half shooting 63.6 percent from the field and 10 of 10 from the line, totaling 20 assists while hitting just three 3-pointers.
Boston shot 55.6 percent from 3 and turned it over only three times, but it didn’t matter much, as Indiana got essentially whatever it wanted. The Celtics did, however, use an 8-0 flurry late in the half to stay within striking distance despite a Nembhard 3 in the final seconds.
After a relatively even start to the second half, the Celtics ratcheted up the defensive intensity and made the Pacers work for everything. A level of firepower that was sorely missing in the second quarter returned at a critical time.
Xavier Tillman – the only Celtic with a positive plus-minus through three quarters – provided a lift defensively, and Horford and Jrue Holiday also chipped in on that end. The Pacers couldn’t buy a 3, but Nembhard continued to sizzle to preserve the lead.
A Doug McDermott tip-in extended Indiana’s lead to 90-81 through three.
Momentum shifted Boston’s entirely Boston’s way early in the fourth, as Holiday and White attacked the offensive glass and Tatum maneuvered his way into the lane. Horford’s sixth 3-pointer trimmed the margin to 93-90 with 8:29 remaining.
“You’ve got to believe,” Tatum said. “We always believe we’ve got a chance to win the game.”
After a vicious throwdown from Brown and a timely 3 from Tatum, the Celtics trailed just 109-106 with 1:41 remaining. Tatum then hit Horford on a slick behind-the-back pass and Horford buried his seventh 3-pointer to cut it to two.
Holiday muscled his way to the rim and finished, plus the foul, to put Boston ahead, 112-111, with 38.9 remaining.
Nembhard got a decent look on the ensuing possession – a midrange shot he had been hitting all night – but he hit the back rim and Horford secured a rebound.
“He was big time for us,” Tatum said of Horford.
Then Holiday, who was also brilliant in Game 1, picked Nembhard’s pocket and provided the finishing touches.
