Of all the good things in Game 1 vs. the Cavaliers, Derrick White may have been the best

There isn’t a more satisfying layer of the Celtics offense than the one revealed when the ball is moving and White is cooking.

Derrick White was locked in during Game 1 against Cleveland, burying 7 of 12 3-point attempts.

May 8, 2024

4 minutes to read

The Celtics’ 25-point, drama-free victory over the Cavaliers in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference semifinals Tuesday night was the epitome of a total team effort.

No doubt about that. We’ll save the deeper discussion about why this is happening for another day, and for now simply offer this truth:

This is the most connected Celtics team in the seven seasons that Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown have been teammates, including the 2022 team that finished two wins shy of Banner 18.

Brown scored 32 points, and served as the de facto starter and closer, scoring the game’s first 5 points and putting away the Cavaliers with barrage of buckets early in the fourth quarter.

Tatum played an effective and disciplined enough all-around game despite struggling with his shot yet again (7 for 19, 0 for 5 from three).

Luke Kornet, who any day now will start to get recognition as a quality player, came off the bench to collect 10 rebounds in 21 minutes.

Jrue Holiday and Al Horford did approximately 43 Jrue Holiday and Al Horford things that don’t show up in a box score but greatly assist the winning cause.

Payton Pritchard buried a long buzzer-beater, because he seems to hit one of those bi-weekly now.

To repeat and emphasize: total team effort. Can’t forget Xavier Tillman’s four strong minutes in the second quarter, either.

Now excuse me while I dedicate a few paragraphs to marveling at the Game 1 performance of a particular single Celtic.

Excuse me while I marvel at Derrick White. It must be done, again, even as his superb play has been routine all season and recurring at an even higher level through six playoff games.

Derrick White has been a force in the playoffs through six games.

White scored 25 points, knocking down 7 of 12 3-point attempts. He’s shooting 50 percent from three in the playoffs, is second on the Celtics in scoring (22.8 points per game), and has set a franchise playoff record for most threes over a six-game span with 28, breaking the mark held by Ray Allen.

While Brown was the engine of the offense early, White was alone in shooting well from 3-point territory through three quarters. At the start of the fourth, White had hit 7 of 11 from three, while the rest of the Celtics combined were 6 for 26.

Four of White’s threes came in the third quarter, including two in the first 3:12, a span in which Holiday also hit two as the Celtics moved the ball beautifully, building their lead to 71-57 and forcing a Cavaliers timeout.

White was so locked in during the third period that he did something out of the ordinary for him. He fired up a heat check. After wriggling his way out of a trap and burying a three with just under two minutes left to boost the lead to 87-72, he took a why-not pullup three on the next possession that ricocheted off the rim.

“I’m getting pretty good looks,” said White when asked about his sensational shooting in the playoff. “Then obviously you make a couple, basket’s a little bit bigger. Then you can kind of take and make tougher ones. I think I definitely started the game with good looks and just went from there.”

Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said that when White is getting good looks, it’s an indication that the offense is operating at its highest efficiency.

“Usually the shots he takes are because we’re either out in transition, we’ve set really good screens and he has that, or there’s two-on-ones and we’re making extra passes,” said Mazzulla. “So I think when those guys get more and more shots, it means we’re getting to the different layers of our offense.”

There isn’t a more satisfying layer of the Celtics offense than the one revealed when the ball is moving and White is cooking. I hope those guys who left him off their top 100 NBA players list at the start of the season have been relegated to covering intramural badminton.

The Celtics’ playoff performance so far is what “taking care of business” looks like. Their average margin of victory is 22.6 points. Even with their lone blemish — a 10-point loss to the Heat in Game 2 of the first round that was a fluke they are outscoring opponents by 17.2 points per game.

Their lead hovered around 10-14 points for much of Tuesday, but there was never a sense that the Cavs would make a real game of it, and the Celtics eventually wiped them off the court in the third and fourth quarters.

Donovan Mitchell got his (35 points), but he doesn’t have the support that the Celtics’ stars do. The stat sheet says Evan Mobley had 17 points and 13 rebounds, but he had the impact of a whisper. And the Cavs just aren’t the same, understandably, without All-World Dean Wade.

Can the Celtics get through this series without an outlier like the one against the Heat? Maybe, though Mitchell could steal a game himself. Honestly, it wouldn’t hurt the Celtics to be tested by a close game or two.

But right now, they’re clobbering their opponents with glee, even without Kristaps Porzingis, and that should not change. No, they haven’t been perfect. But they have been connected, relentless, and poised, and that hasn’t always been the case in postseasons past.

Oh, and Derrick White is rolling, in part because he’s locked in and confident, and in part because this is just who he is at this phase of his career.

Whaddaya say, top 50 player at worst, right?