Jaylen Brown’s heroics vault Celtics over Pacers in chaotic Game 1: 10 takeaways
The Celtics relied on their stars to pull off a 133-128 overtime victory over the Pacers in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals Tuesday.
The Celtics needed a little luck and a gutsy performance down the stretch, but they pulled out a 133-128 overtime victory over the Pacers in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals on Tuesday.
Here are the takeaways.
1. It’s hard to explain how the Celtics were even in a position to win in the first place, but we’ll do our best.
One thing to know about this series is that it will be very stressful for both teams. The Pacers are not a good defensive group, but they can really score. That means there will be stretches where the Celtics go up by double figures, and moments shortly afterward when the Pacers come roaring back. There might very well be times when the Pacers go up by double figures, but Celtics fans shouldn’t despair: There’s a good chance they will come roaring back as well.
On Tuesday, the Celtics held a 13-point lead in the second half, and a five-point lead in overtime, but the Pacers – predictably – rallied, and they held a three-point lead and possession of the ball with 37 seconds remaining after Jayson Tatum missed a makeable 3-pointer. Things looked bleak for the Celtics.
But the wheels came off entirely for the Pacers. Tyrese Haliburton turned the ball over by dribbling it off his knee. The Pacers got a stop, and after an ill-advised and unnecessary turnaround jumper by Tatum in the paint with 16 seconds remaining, the Pacers had another chance to put the game away up three. Things looked very bleak for the Celtics.
But once again, the Pacers threw away their opportunity. This time, Nembhard panicked up against a five-second call, and Jaylen Brown made a spectacular play disrupting Nembhard’s pass to a streaking Pascal Siakam. Siakam couldn’t grab it before it went out of bounds, and the Celtics had one more chance.
That set up this moment.
“Before the inbound I was talking to myself,” Brown said. “‘If I get this shot, it’s going in.’ I was telling myself the whole time, you get it, it’s going up and it’s going in. I happened to create some space on the backside and was able to make a big-time play.”
“It’s simple,” Tatum added. “Big-time players make big-time plays. That was a hell of a shot he made. The deflection that gave us the opportunity to make that shot.”
In overtime, Tatum took the wheel. The Celtics trailed by two with 1:20 remaining, but Tatum scored a layup and was fouled by T.J. McConnell, and he buried a 3-pointer on the next possession that pushed the lead to four with 43 seconds left. The Celtics held on for a wild 1-0 series lead.
“Just staying with it, man,” Joe Mazzulla said. “You can’t have any expectations about how it’s supposed to go. You miss a layup, you miss a three, you give something up, it doesn’t matter. I thought our guys had that kind of mindset, and credit to him for just changing the frequency.”
2. The discussion around Tatum will be fascinating over the next few days. On the one hand, he missed two big shots – the potential game-tying triple and his turnaround jumper with 16 seconds left, which really was a terrible shot. If the Pacers hadn’t lost control of their limbs, he never would have had a chance to be the overtime hero. Even in overtime, he was a little shaky – his turnover with 1:30 left led to three free throws by Tyrese Haliburton, which allowed the Pacers to regain the lead.
On the other hand, well, the Pacers did lose control of their limbs, and Tatum was the overtime hero.
“That s— was chaos,” Tatum said. “That s— was wild. But just stay present, stay in the moment. As long as there’s time still on the clock and the game is within reach, we feel like we have a chance. This core group has been in so many big-time games, big-time moments.”
In the end, Tatum scored 11 of his 36 points in overtime and finished with a 36-12-4 stat line with three steals.
3. Brown, meanwhile, scored 26 points on 10-for-20 shooting to go with seven rebounds, five assists and three steals. As is often the case, he got the Celtics off to a great start offensively with 10 points on 5-for-6 shooting in the first quarter.
The Celtics needed everything from their stars, and both stars came through in a big way at the last possible second.
4. Jrue Holiday had one of his best games of the postseason with 28 points on 10-for-16 shooting and a number of nice defensive plays. Haliburton will have to work for his offense throughout the series against Holiday, and he’ll have to give a little more than he appears comfortable giving on the defensive end – Holiday dominated opposing guards in the post and went at Haliburton at every available opportunity.
“He was unbelievable tonight,” Al Horford said. “It was a lot of fun watching him just kind of go and do his thing and just put his imprint on the game. Whether it’s posting up or whether it’s shooting threes. He was just all over the place.”
5. The Celtics could really use Kristaps Porzingis in this series. The Pacers gave up a lot of pick-and-pop 3-pointers, and Horford struggled to take advantage consistently – he finished 3-for-12 from behind the arc. Porzingis would stress an already-stressed Pacers defense to a breaking point.
The good news? The Celtics seem to have some momentum on that front.
6. Horford had a difficult game defensively – the Pacers targeted him in the pick-and-roll with some success, especially late as they tried to put the game away.
“It’s hard to tell right now because the way that I prepared for the shots, that at least that I felt like I gave up, were the shots that I can be okay with the results,” Horford said. “Played good defense, mid-range pull up jump shots. But I definitely will go back and look at it. And even in that regard, I want to be better. So, I’ll make sure that I’m better defensively for this next game.”
7. Sam Hauser missed both of his 3-point attempts and had a couple of really rough sequences, including one in the second half where he gave up a jumper to McConnell before setting an illegal screen that gave the Pacers the ball back for a final shot. Haliburton nailed a 3-pointer.
Hauser played nine minutes and was -8.
8. This is a difficult series for Luke Kornet as well: The Pacers targeted him with pick-and-pops for Myles Turner, who shot 9-for-13 from the floor and 3-for-4 from three to finish with 23 points. With Xavier Tillman out for personal reasons, the Celtics needed to figure out a way to make it work, and they shuffled things in the second half enough to flip Kornet’s -4 in the first half to a +6 in the final two quarters.
9. After four quarters, the Celtics held a 23-3 advantage in free throws. They finished with 30 to the Pacers’ 10.
Rick Carlisle opted not to complain postgame, citing the amount of money he has already lost on complaining about officials.
For what it’s worth, that disparity is odd, but the Celtics were called for just 16.2 fouls per game during the regular season (second-fewest in the NBA) while the Pacers were whistled for 21.4 (most in the NBA). So while 23-3 is … lopsided to say the least, there’s reason to believe the Pacers will commit more fouls than the Celtics over the course of this series naturally.
10. Game 2 will tip off at 8 p.m. on Thursday.
“[This game] doesn’t prove anything,” Tatum said. “We won a big time game. Series is far from over. We got to come back and play well enough to win again on Thursday. I’m not trying to prove anything individually. I know the ultimate goal is to try to win a championship, but one step at a time. It’s a big-time win tonight and come back and be ready for Thursday.”
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