Jayson Tatum, Celtics avoid disaster with Game 3 blowout vs. Knicks: 8 takeaways
The Celtics made 20 of their 40 3-pointers to sink the Knicks in Game 3, coming away with a 115-93 victory to get their first win of the series.
The Celtics built a big lead and – finally – kept it on Saturday, blowing out the Knicks 115-93, trimming their series deficit to 2-1.
Here are the takeaways.
The Celtics found their stroke (and the game looked way more normal).
Given that the Celtics have led by 20 in each of the first three games of this series, it’s staggering that they trail 2-1 after Saturday’s win, but that’s neither here nor there.
The Celtics staved off sure defeat with Saturday’s victory, which opened with a barrage of 3-pointers from the Celtics’ starters that proved more than enough to boost them to a comfortable victory.
The 3-pointers came from all over the floor, but some of the biggest makes came from Al Horford, Jrue Holiday, and Derrick White, who were a combined 8 of 13. The biggest issue at the start of the series was that the Celtics simply could not hit open threes that they have come to rely on as a massive part of their offense. Horford, Holiday, and White provided the Celtics with 24 points from deep, but more importantly, they offered spacing and reliable outlets when the Celtics got into the paint.
The Celtics were unlikely to keep shooting that poorly from deep, which is something that Knicks fans who spent $800 on standing-room-only tickets might have wanted to consider ahead of time. Given that it took near-historic levels of collapse for the Celtics to get to this point, all they realistically needed to do in Game 3 was make a few shots down the stretch after they built their big lead to hang on, and – finally – they came through.
That leaves the Celtics in a strange space. Clearly, they are the better team – albeit a shaken one that still stands on shaky ground. They saw in 2023 how surrendering all of your breathing room can look when they went down 3-0 to the Heat and stormed back, only to lose Game 7 because Tatum sprained his ankle.
Saturday’s game was a must-win, but so is Game 4. Wednesday’s Game 5 is pretty important too, whether they win or lose.
Essentially, if the Celtics lose again, their best-case scenario is forcing a winner-take-all Game 7. As a team, they need to avoid thinking that way – the best strategy for winning this series is to patiently try to win every game individually. Prepare for Game 4 in a vacuum, play smart basketball, and hope that your status as the superior team is enough to push you through to Game 5. Then repeat that process until the series is over.
Still, for us observers, it’s hard not to think about the fact that if the Celtics had simply shot poorly (instead of disastrously), there’s a good chance they would be up 3-0 and looking to close out the Knicks on their own floor.
“Obviously we’re disappointed after Game 2. We’re competitors,” Payton Pritchard said. “We let it slip, but you got to move on to the next one. You’ve got to take care of Game 3. It’s a must-win and now it’s on to Game 4. We’ve got to have the same mindset coming in and trying to bring it to 2-2 and bring it back home.
Payton Pritchard came alive at the right time.
One underrated reason the Celtics are so dangerous is that they have players like Pritchard, who can explode and give them 23 points off the bench on any given night. The Knicks are a prime target, with multiple bigs who struggle with Pritchard’s shifty dribbling and skittering stop-and-start movements – Mitchell Robinson found himself twisted completely into a pretzel trying to stay in front of Pritchard prior to one second-half 3-pointer.
“Just got to maintain my aggressiveness, any chance I get,” Pritchard said. “Attack the paint, I’ll always be hunting the three ball, obviously, but I thought I did a good job of sometimes getting in the paint, making a play.
“For me, it’s just about energy coming in. If I’ve got to get a rebound, get an assist, get a stop, hit a big shot, got to be ready for everything.”
Pritchard finished 8 of 16 from the floor and 5 of 10 from deep. Another big shooting performance in Game 4 would go a long way from the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year.
Jayson Tatum was still relatively quiet.
The Celtics won Game 3 despite a relatively lukewarm game by Tatum. His statline was solid – 22 points on 8 of 20 shooting, nine rebounds and seven assists – but it looked much more like the late playoff stat lines he posted last year as the Celtics stormed to a title, and much less like the gaudy scoring performances he put together to propel them over the Magic in Round 1.
How will the Knicks defend the Celtics going forward? After Saturday’s 50-percent shooting from deep, the Knicks could consider trying to force Tatum to beat them by selling out to stop the three, but that’s risky business – Tatum is absolutely capable of putting his team on his back and putting together a classic performance at Madison Square Garden.
According to reports, Tatum got in an extra workout prior to Saturday’s game.
“It’s a long season and you go through stretches where maybe you don’t need to change anything, but you just need to get in the gym and see some shots go in and just kind of get your rhythm going,” he said. “That’s where the confidence stems from all the work that you put in, the muscle memory and things like that. And I’ve been doing that my whole life.”
Joe Mazzulla is very sick of live-ball turnovers.
Live-ball turnovers are one of the more damaging plays an NBA player can make – not only does a live-ball turnover hand the opposing team possession, it often jumpstarts a fast break, which generally leads to efficient offense.
Mazzulla mentioned live-ball turnovers first in his post-game press conference, and he went on to bring them up six times total in seven minutes of speaking.
When a reporter asked him if the win was as simple as making 3s instead of missing them, Mazzulla disagreed emphatically.
“I can’t stress to you the importance of not throwing the ball to the other team so they get out in transition,” Mazzulla said. “They had 28 points in transition in Game 2, and not ending quarters well, when it’s at 20 and it gets to 12 with 58 seconds left in the third – you have to end quarters. You have to start quarters well. You have to value the basketball. You have to win the margins.”
The Celtics finished with eight turnovers on Saturday, only two of which were live-ball turnovers.
The Knicks made a mini-run, and everyone held their breath.
A byproduct of having given up 20-point leads in back-to-back games is that when the other team makes a surge – any kind of a surge at all, really – everyone watching is going to think the wheels are about to fall off.
Early in the third quarter, the Knicks went on a 9-3 run on the strength of three straight triples – two by Jalen Brunson – which trimmed a 26-point lead to 20, and suddenly, everything felt apocalyptic.
And then? Nothing really happened. Kristaps Porzingis went 1 of 2 at the free-throw line. The Knicks had a couple of empty possessions in a row. The Celtics scored four of the next six points and time kept ticking, and by the time Brunson scored again – a floater that trimmed the Celtics’ lead back to 21 – there was only 5:41 remaining. Jrue Holiday banged home a 3-pointer on the ensuing possession, all but ending the Knicks’ mini-run.
Saturday’s win threw the Celtics’ early failures in this series into sharp relief. They weren’t just cold stretches. They were disastrous avalanches, where everything went wrong very quickly, and the Celtics couldn’t dig themselves out. All they needed in either game was something small to right the ship – two consecutive stops, for instance, or a single, solitary three to fall through.
We’ll say it one more time: The Celtics do not need to be perfect to beat the Knicks. They just need to avoid a total collapse.
Kristaps Porzingis played limited minutes again.
Porzingis added some value in his 19 minutes of action, pulling down four rebounds and blocking three shots, but he was 0 of 4 from the floor and looked very winded whenever he went to the bench.
“He gave us some good stuff,” Mazzulla said. “Both ends of the floor, rim protection, his screening offensively, everybody got some good stuff out of that. I appreciate him, keep battling through.”
Mitchell Robinson really is unbelievably bad at free throws.
We questioned Mazzulla’s strategy of fouling Robinson in Game 2, in large part because the Knicks simply watched Robinson collect the fouls until they were in the bonus, at which point they pulled him and played things out.
After the game, Mazzulla defended the strategy by noting that Robinson was plus19 in the game. On Saturday, the Celtics kept hacking Robinson intentionally, and it was much more successful. Robinson had a brutal evening at the free-throw line, finishing a horrific 4 of 12. Robinson had another embarrassing airball – his second of the series – and while Knicks fans exploded in cheers every time he made one, the Celtics certainly won’t be discouraged from their strategy after watching Robinson hang his head in shame following his airball.
That’s doubly true considering that Robinson was minus-3 in a game the Knicks lost by 22 and trailed by 30 at times.
“Just process over results,” Mazzulla said. “You just always stick to the process of what you think gives you the best chance to win on that possession and to win in that game.”
Now, the Celtics have to win on Monday.
Having swerved to avoid disaster on Saturday, the Celtics can now look ahead to Monday’s game at MSG, which tips off at 7 p.m.
Once again, the Celtics desperately need a win.
“We’re on a path of trying to go after greatness, and you don’t get to dictate the test that’s in front of you,” Mazzulla said. “All you get to dictate is how you approach it and how you respond to it.
“This is the fun part, I didn’t get into the journey for it to be easy. It’s been dark, but in a good way.”
Brown noted that the Celtics are experienced in these moments.
“You’ve got to beat us four times,” he said. “That’s what it comes down to. Not twice. Not once. Not three. You’ve got to win four games, so it’s a lot of basketball to be played.”
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