3 thoughts on the Celtics’ Game 1 win over the Wizards
COMMENTARY
I’ll ask, and you answer honestly: When the Wizards bolted to a 16-0 lead to start Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals series, did you believe the Celtics would rally make a game of it, let alone win by a relatively comfortable 123-111 score?
Hey, I’ll be honest too: I figured they had a chance, if their 3-pointers started to fall and their defensive intensity didn’t wane. But had they gone another possession or two without scoring – an Isaiah Thomas free throw finally took the lid off the hoop about halfway through the first quarter – I’d have seriously started to wonder whether they were ever going to score again.
The record shows that they did make shots, a lot of them. The 3-pointers fell (19 of 39, 48.7 percent), the defensive effort remained relentless despite the dynamic duo of Bradley Beal and John Wall combining for 47 points, and the Celtics outscored the Wizards, 123-95, after the miserable start.
The Celtics tied it for the first time at 7:39 of the second quarter at 42-42. They took their first lead with little more than 6 minutes left in the third at 73-71. There were some remarkable individual performances that made it happen – superb free-agent signing Al Horford had 21 points, 10 assists and 9 rebounds, and I’ll dig into a few of the other top performances in a minute.
But this one should be remembered as a total team effort, or at least as close as a team can get that still asks for contributions from Amir Johnson. Kelly Olynyk kept the Celtics from falling too far behind with 10 first-quarter points. Marcus Smart gave them a jolt of toughness when he came into the game. Avery Bradley (18 points, 4 steals) made Beal and Wall work for every point when he was in their vicinity. Even Terry Rozier and Jaylen Brown gave them brief boosts, with Brown scoring 5 points in 6 minutes.
Ultimately, the win was a pleasant reminder of the Celtics’ collective resilience, one of the most admirable recurring characteristics of this team. They’ve won five playoff games in a row now, and they’re a game up in what is sure to continue to be a wildly entertaining series with a talented, reckless team that does not like them all that much. This was a heck of an opener – even if it took them a while to get started.
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Jae Crowder didn’t deliver an especially strong performance in the Bulls series, averaging 12.0 points and 5.3 rebounds per game while shooting just 40.9 percent from the field and 27.3 percent from 3. That continued a run of adequate-to-worse performances in the postseason; last year he shot just 27.8 percent against the Hawks while playing on an injured ankle.
We’ve been waiting for Crowder, a dependable all-around player who had a solid shooting season (a career-best 39.8 percent from 3) him to break out. Sunday, it happened in impressive fashion, and it was practically worth the wait.
Crowder scored a career-playoff high 24 points – including six 3-pointers on just eight attempts – to provide the Celtics with some crucial scoring, especially in the third quarter. He hit the shot that gave the Celtics their first lead (73-71), another that put them up 76-73, and a third that build the lead to 11 (91-80) with 2:24 left. It might not have been his best shooting game as a Celtic, but it was his best shooting in a big game. That was the guy Danny Ainge supposedly considered as deal-breaking in a Jimmy Butler trade.
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I don’t know how he does it.
I suspect I’ve said that, either in writing or muttering with wonderment to myself while watching the game, dozens upon dozens of times since Isaiah Thomas came to the Celtics three seasons ago.
It’s usually said in the context of his ability to finish at the rim, with either hand, against players who are often well over a foot taller than he is. It’s usually in response to his array of moves – his hesitation moves and floaters and flips and pull-up 3s, all executed with impeccable body control and the utmost confidence.
So I guess we do know how he does it. We’re just marveling that it’s actually possible.
But I don’t know how Isaiah Thomas is doing it right now, and you know what I mean if you’re aware of the tumult and tragedy that rocked his family recently. Thomas arrived back in Boston at 4 a.m. Sunday morning from Tacoma, Wash., where he attended the funeral of his 22-year-old sister Chyna, who was killed in a car accident 15 days ago.
While navigating his personal devastation, Thomas has continued to play – and at his usual exceptional level. Thomas was downright superb Sunday after the collective slow start, scoring 33 points (doesn’t it seem like he always scores 33 points?), while hitting 5 3-pointers and dishing out 9 assists.
It was arguably his best pure shooting performance of the playoffs, and he did it while dealing with John Wall and Bradley Beal on defense and enduring the weird effects of getting a tooth knocked out in the first quarter.
I don’t know how Thomas is doing this, all of it. But just when I think my appreciation and respect for him can’t grow any more, he goes out and shows us another way to be remarkable.
