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The Celtics won the play-in. So what can we expect against Kyrie Irving’s Nets?
Will Boston's collective effort be there vs. Brooklyn?
COMMENTARY
The Celtics played with more poise in Tuesday night’s play-in rout of the Wizards than they have in weeks and for their effort now get a matchup with the aggressively annoying Brooklyn Nets, who have more big-name talent than most Team USA rosters.
Unfair? Well, no. The Celtics had some real reasons for their thoroughly mediocre 36-36 regular season, but the effort that was there Tuesday night was too often fleeting on those random January nights in Sacramento or Indianapolis. For better or worse, they’re where they should be, and probably getting what they deserve.
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Here’s the best-case scenario I can conjure: They play with the collective effort they did Tuesday, Jayson Tatum stays scorching-hot, they steal a game early in the series (if not Game 2 in Brooklyn, then Game 3 in Boston, when Kyrie Irving will be booed like he changed his name to Ulf “A-Rod” Manning), then hope Irving, Kevin Durant and James Harden get into a three-way on-court collision reminiscent of the Vinnie Johnson/Adrian Dantley head-on crash during Game 7 of the 1987 Eastern Conference Finals.
A lot to ask? Sure! Too much? Probably! I might be able to talk myself into thinking the Celtics have a chance in this series if Jaylen Brown had two functioning wrists right now. But he’s a bystander after season-ending surgery, and after watching Robert Williams III crumble like he had been detonated after landing on Tatum’s foot late in the first half Tuesday, the Celtics are going to be shorthanded against a team that is overloaded with talent.
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Going into Tuesday’s game, I wondered if the Celtics may have been slightly better served by losing to the Wizards, then beating the Pacers Thursday night, thus ending up with the No. 8 seed and facing the top-seeded Sixers rather than the Nets, whom I may have mentioned are extremely annoying. But unless Marcus Smart has a half-a-foot growth spurt in him this week, I’m not sure who could even attempt to defend Joel Embiid. And the Celtics are in no position for strategic we’d-rather-play-them shenanigans anyway.
They were best served by winning Tuesday night, and by winning the way they did. If it wasn’t a best-case scenario, it was pretty close.
It’s easy to forget that there were frustrations early. They were down 2 points at the half, having shot 17 of 49 from the field to that point. Ish Smith, a 12-team NBA vagabond who always seems to turn into 1974 Tiny Archibald for spurts against the Celtics, was being a pest. Williams and Smart were hobbling. Tatum was terrific all-around, fully engaged on defense too, but he hadn’t gone into turbo mode yet. Passes were slightly off, and the Celtics missed nine straight 3s at one point in the second quarter.
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It felt familiar, and perhaps a little foreboding. So what happened? The Celtics blew them off the court in the third quarter. Tatum went into turbo mode, and whatever the next mode after that is (ludicrous mode?), raining shots on helpless Wizards defenders from virtually any spot in the half court. (Did he remind anyone of vintage Kobe Bryant there? Anyone? No? Just me? Huh.) He was in that zone where every shot he took ripped through the net the same way, straight down as if the ball had been dropped from an airplane, a barrage of pure swishes. And when Tatum wasn’t burying jumpers and the Wizards at once, it’s because Kemba Walker (29 points) was doing it instead.
Tatum’s 50 points should stand as the play-in record at least until Steph Curry heats up against the Lakers Wednesday night. It’s bizarre that the NBA has decided that play-in statistics don’t count on playoff or regular-season totals – we’re crossing sports here, but shouldn’t it work like that ’78 Red Sox-Yankees one-game playoff, when the Game 163 numbers counted toward the regular season?
But it’s kind of fitting, too, I suppose. The play-in itself is bizarre. With Tatum dropping a smooth 50, Russell Westbrook playing with an odd indifference like he was pouting that the stats don’t count on his regular season totals, TNT’s soon-to-be-retiring Marv Albert calling Aaron Nesmith “Marcus Smart” at least four times, YouTube TV crashing for a few minutes, and the way-too-casual summer-league vibe of the low-key broadcast overall, the league’s first play-in certainly left a lasting impression, though perhaps not one conclusively convincing that the play-in itself should last as a concept.
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It probably is here to stay, though, given the buzz of the thing. I wish I could say the same for the Celtics and their playoff status. Here’s to at least making the Nets nervous, to making Kyrie’s eardrums thump when he finally returns to the scene of his desertion, and to taking victories large and small whenever you can get them.
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