‘That’s the Jrue I love’: How Jrue Holiday put the Celtics on his back despite scoring just nine points
"That’s why Jrue Holiday is Jrue Holiday," Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said.
Jrue Holiday slid in front of Franz Wagner and took an aggressive swipe at the ball, causing the Magic forward to dribble it off of his heel.
Then he scooped up the loose ball and drained a top-of-the-key transition 3-pointer in Wagner’s face.
The triple extended the Celtics’ third-quarter lead to nine and helped provide an emotional lift as Boston pulled away from Orlando in a 103-86 victory in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference first round.
“It’s playoff basketball, so you can feel the energy in the arena, you can feel it in the air, you can feel it in the team,” Holiday said. “It’s just one of those feelings, like, we’re here.”
Holiday’s aggressiveness on both ends of the floor was a welcome sight, Jaylen Brown said.
The three-time all-defensive first team selection averaged 11.1 points per game during the regular-season, his lowest total since his rookie season in 2010. He has been dealing with a mallet finger injury, and his shooting numbers from the field and 3-point range have dipped.
Holiday didn’t need much offense to start these playoffs off with a bang. He helped execute a third-quarter takeover that propelled Boston ahead of a scrappy Magic squad that led by one at the half.
“That’s the Jrue I love. That’s the Jrue I remember competing against,” Brown said. “The regular season is different from the playoffs. I know sometimes y’all forget that. You can see the intensity level is a lot different. You can see the physicality is a lot different.”
“We’ll take it one game at a time, but Jrue, he loves the environment just as much as I do. You can see him picking up guys, blowing through screens, and just making plays. When we get that Jrue, it’s a good sign for us.”
Holiday seemed more fired up than usual after the sequence when he stripped Wagner and drained the three. He helped provide an emotional lift, coach Joe Mazzulla said.
“He’s an innate competitor, and sometimes he takes a back seat because of the type of guys that we have,” Mazzulla said. “I thought tonight, he put the team on his back from that passion and emotion standpoint, and that’s why Jrue Holiday is Jrue Holiday. So we’re lucky to have him. We’re going to need that every single night.”
Mazzulla praised Holiday for his ball pressure and individual defense. Little things, such as deflecting an entry pass intended for Paolo Banchero, had a big impact.
“He took on the challenge of his matchup and I thought he did a great job on both ends of the floor. His defense led to our offense,” said Mazzulla.
Derrick White, who scored a game-high 30-points, benefitted from a couple of Holiday’s five assists.
“He was big time on both sides of the ball, taking on that challenge and causing havoc and then offensively just making the right play every time,” White said. “He just does so much for our team and doesn’t care about any of the numbers. It’s great to have him as a teammate.”
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