Derrick White’s late surge lifts Celtics to win over Cavaliers: 9 takeaways
Derrick White caught fire late, and the Celtics led for 42 minutes against the top-seeded Cavaliers on Tuesday, claiming an impressive 112-105 win.
Here are the takeaways.
Derrick White is completely back.
Let’s go ahead and call it officially: The Celtics have their star-in-his-role (but maybe just flat-out-star) guard back after a lengthy shooting slump.
The Celtics spent most of Tuesday’s game in the lead, but after taking a 20-point advantage in the second quarter, they couldn’t quite put finishing distance between themselves and the Cavs. The lead ballooned into the teens repeatedly, and White hit a pair of 31-foot triples to start the quarter, both of which helped the Celtics push their lead to 15.
But every time the Celtics had a chance to hit 16 or 17, the Cavaliers got a big stop and a big 3-pointer. White missed a pair of free throws at the 7:26 mark that seemed to give the Cavaliers a little momentum, and Donovan Mitchell – who remains an actual monster – converted and-one layup that trimmed the lead to four with 5:30 left.
But when the Cavs looked like they might put themselves in a position to really challenge for a win down the stretch, White took over.
He redeemed himself for his misses at the line at the 4:13 mark with a jumper from the same spot that dropped through.
Then he grabbed a rebound off a missed three by Mitchell and buried a 30-footer that pushed the lead to nine.
On the next possession, White fired up another three that hit every part of the rim and eventually fell through. The normally reserved White spun toward the Celtics bench, bellowing something, and the Celtics had a 10-point lead with 2:43 remaining. The Cavaliers never really challenged again.
White started slumping in December (35.1 percent from three) and slipped even further in January (32.8 percent, boosted by three solid shooting performances to end the month).
But in his last five games, White is now 22-for-47. He looks comfortable and confident, and he’s spacing the floor at the level the Celtics so badly need from a player not named Tatum or Brown.
This pass by Jayson Tatum was insane.
Generally, we try not to overstate things in this space, but this is an incredible pass.
That’s all the way across the court (and then some, given the angle), over a thicket of defenders that includes Evan Mobley directly into Al Horford’s shooting pocket. How many players can make that pass with that level of ease? LeBron James is one. Luka Doncic is another. Nikola Jokic is certainly a third. After that, the list grows very thin, and the fact that Tatum can do it is one of the many, many reasons that even when he isn’t scoring 30 points per game, he’s one of the most impactful (and some might say “valuable”) players in the world.
Tatum and Jaylen Brown did plenty to help the Celtics win, but neither player had a particularly impressive game in the box score.
Brown was efficient, scoring 16 points on 7-for-12 shooting, but foul trouble limited his minutes and seemed to hinder his rhythm, and he turned the ball over five times.
Tatum finished with seven assists (and many more hockey assists), and he only turned the ball over once, but he needed 7-for-23 shooting to get himself up to 22 points.
The numbers don’t tell the whole story. Brown scored the Celtics’ first 11 points and got them going at a time when both teams seemed to be working through the kinks in the first quarter. Tatum, meanwhile, was the fulcrum of the offense and made the right decision repeatedly when the Cavaliers attacked him with multiple defenders out of the pick-and-roll to prevent the Celtics from getting the switches they wanted. The problem with that strategy against Tatum in 2025, of course, is that he’s capable of making insane passes.
Here it is again so you don’t have to scroll up.
Good lord.
Kristaps Porzingis had a big impact defensively.
The Cavaliers have a ton of size, but so do the Celtics, and Porzingis got the better of the Cavs on Tuesday. He scored 19 points on 20 shots, shooting just 1-for-6 from deep, but he blocked two shots, impacted many more and picked off two difficult steals.
Maintaining the health of their bigs is crucial for the Celtics over the next two or three months, because the fact that they have a genuine answer for (and, in fact, maybe even an advantage over) Cleveland’s size is such an important counter against an opponent that talented.
The Celtics’ bench unit performed well.
The Celtics built their 20-point lead in the first half on the strength of their second unit, which – in tandem with Tatum during both of their longer stints – pounded the Cavaliers on both ends. Al Horford – who drew some ire from fed up Cavs fans postgame – scored 13 points and hit a few big 3-pointers to open up the floor while grabbing 10 rebounds. Payton Pritchard was 3-for-7 from deep. Luke Kornet was typically quiet in the box score while simultaneously impactful. Horford, Pritchard, Kornet and Sam Hauser were +19, +19, +10 and +18 respectively.
The Celtics stuck with something closer to a playoff rotation in what may have been a preview of the Eastern Conference finals, with both Hauser and Kornet playing fewer than 13 minutes, but their bench more than did its job.
The Cavaliers have some real problems against the Celtics.
If the Celtics and Cavaliers face each other in the postseason, Cleveland has its work cut out for several reasons – Jarrett Allen will have to play drop coverage against everyone, Mitchell is competitive-but-short, Sam Merrill can’t really defend, and Max Strus can’t defend the Celtics’ stars.
But the biggest issue remains Darius Garland, who remains the type of player the Celtics hunt mercilessly. Garland is an important player for the Cavaliers – a secondary ball-handler and scoring outlet who relieves some pressure off Donovan Mitchell – but he offers the Celtics the kind of easy mismatch that they exploited so effortlessly in their rude dispatch of the Mavericks in the Finals, and Tuesday’s game hammered home how difficult Cleveland’s job is defensively when Garland is in the game. Down the stretch, the Celtics kept running Garland through pick-and-rolls, and eventually, the Cavaliers would be forced into a switch that would allow the Celtics to get the kind of look they want.
Maybe the Cavaliers have some adjustments and some counters that they are saving for the playoffs, but all available evidence that we have after three regular-season games is that late in close playoff games, the Celtics have an easy way to generate looks they want. Mitchell is phenomenal, but asking him to make up for that is a big task.
A bad night for Celtics challenges.
The Celtics are generally one of the better teams in the NBA at choosing their spots to challenge, but Tuesday was a difficult one on both ends.
First, Sam Hauser coaxed a challenge out of his coaches by arguing that he hadn’t actually clipped Sam Merrill as he ran by to contest a 3-pointer. Hauser was right that his contest was clean, blocking Merrill’s shot, but he clearly ran into Merrill, and the Celtics’ challenge was predictably unsuccessful, which meant that Mazzulla and the Celtics were without a challenge for nearly three full quarters.
In the third, the Cavaliers got a huge reversal on a breakaway when Jaylen Brown elevated for a dunk and was fouled by Georges Niang. Brown, however, inadvertently elbowed Niang in the head on his way down, and the Cavaliers successfully got the call reversed which simultaneously led to Brown’s fourth foul.
Brown, enraged by the call, barked something at Scott Foster shortly afterward, which earned him a technical and drew a big cheer out of Cleveland’s crowd. He spent the rest of the third quarter on the bench, but returned at the start of the fourth.
Another successful road trip.
Even when the Celtics haven’t been at their best this year, they’ve been good when they hit the road. They went 3-1 on consecutive four-game road trips (admittedly dropping disappointing losses to the Lakers and Thunder, which marred the trips a bit), but their win over the Cavaliers closed their recent trip 3-0. The wins weren’t always easy – they needed a buzzer beater by Tatum to beat the Pelicans and a 26-point second-half rally to beat the 76ers – but returning to TD Garden on the strength of a win that trimmed their deficit in the Eastern Conference to 4.5 is a nice boost.
More rings.
Grant Hill was the color commentator for TNT’s coverage of Tuesday’s game, which meant he was present to give championship rings to Tatum, White and Jrue Holiday – the three Celtics representatives of Team USA’s gold medal run at the Olympics in Paris last summer.
A very cool moment for the trio. Also, we would assume Hill and the Celtics either got into the locker room before Brown made it to the arena or waited until he went out onto the court to warm up.
Back home.
The Celtics will head home now for a fascinating showdown on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. against the new-look Mavericks, who might have new acquisition Anthony Davis in the lineup for the first time after he sat Tuesday’s game against the 76ers.
On Saturday, the Celtics will make the short trip to Madison Square Garden to face the Knicks for a primetime game on ABC.
To comment, please create a screen name in your profile
To comment, please verify your email address
Conversation
This discussion has ended. Please join elsewhere on Boston.com