INDIANAPOLIS — Jayson Tatum’s favourite postseason matchups are Game 3s. “Going into an opponent’s home building, it’s their first home game, the crowd is electric,” Tatum mentioned. He’s accustomed, thoughts you, to the third battle of a series happening on the street, as Boston has earned home-court benefit in no less than the primary spherical of the playoffs throughout six of Tatum’s seven seasons with the Celtics, together with a top-two seed in every of the previous three years. He dribbles with aggression and defends with depth and rounds his huge shoulders for essential performs on the glass. He senses a second and the requirement to ship.
Tatum considered Gainbridge Fieldhouse as a hostile setting he wanted to silence Saturday night time. The Pacers had not misplaced on this enviornment, in entrance of this golden sea of checkered-flag T-shirts, since March 18 — together with a 6-0 postseason slate. Indiana appeared nicely on its method to extending that streak, even with out injured All-Star level guard Tyrese Haliburton, thanks to a blistering mid-range capturing show that constructed an 18-point lead as late as 6:04 within the third quarter.
Lineup tweaks and matchup changes from Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla helped Boston inch and inch its method into one other crunchtime contest. And who was it however Tatum, ending with 36 factors, 10 rebounds plus 8 assists — the primary in NBA postseason historical past to tally these numbers with out a single turnover — drawing two on a robust drive with simply over a minute remaining. Tatum noticed Myles Turner had sagged down the baseline and skim the Pacers heart like a kids’s e book. If he was right here, that meant Turner left his precise project, the Celtics’ ageless huge man, Al Horford. And as soon as Tatum satisfied Turner, plus two different defenders, that he was launching within the lane, Tatum despatched his dribble behind his again, the ball bouncing as soon as and immediately into Horford’s capturing pocket.
“I trusted that he was gonna be there,” Tatum mentioned, and Hoford’s seventh triple of the competition — 5 of which have been assisted by Tatum — splashed by means of cotton. It’s the kind of playmaking brilliance that earned Tatum first-team All-NBA honors this week for the fourth straight season. It was the kind of postseason move that can sizzle on spotlight reels nicely past when this Celtics’ run stops cooking, one thing that deserves commemoration. “Hang it in the f**king Louvre,” mentioned Jaylen Brown, the Celtics’ All-Star wing.
Boston, after all, solely actually cares about hanging banners, and this gutty 114-111 victory, claiming a 3-0 series edge over Indiana, will be the Celtics’ best declare but the league’s greatest regular-season workforce can actually stand up to this playoff gauntlet. Yes, accidents have riddled every of Boston’s postseason opponents — Haliburton’s hamstring follows Donovan Mitchell’s calf and Jarrett Allen’s ribs and Jimmy Butler’s knee and so forth — however this early wrestle towards the Pacers felt terribly paying homage to the Celtics’ Game 2 losses in every of their first two series, just like the jarring situations when Boston’s high-powered offense appears to be like something like the kind, till this time — Boston withstood.
The Celtics’ defensive execution lacked timing and tenacity. Outside of Tatum and Horford, the Celtics’ different shooters clanked pictures, connecting on simply 4-of-22 from distance. “When those things don’t happen for us in the past,” Horford mentioned, “it hasn’t been good.” Mazzulla, although, has been getting ready Boston for this recreation’s explicit problem, for any recreation’s explicit problem, all season. “Joe always talks about, ‘It’s not always gonna go how we want it to, or we expect it to,’” Tatum mentioned. These 48 minutes not often go to script, however Mazzulla preaches being prepared to scribble over all the things with purple ink.
“Joe was trying to do anything and everything that he could to kinda get us going,” Horford mentioned.
“At one point, I looked at the scoreboard and I was like, ‘Dallas was down 18 last night,” mentioned Mazzulla, referencing the Mavericks’ personal comeback to steal a 2-0 series lead over Minnesota within the Western Conference finals. “This has to be normal. We have to know that we’re going to be losing in the playoffs and we have to play through it.”
Mazzulla and All-Star level guard Jrue Holiday have spent all season whispering throughout the sideline about how to change some protection right here, invert some motion there, to often disrupt their opponent. Holiday’s uncommon skill at simply 6-foot-4 to guard all 5 positions unlocks virtually any lineup or adjustment Mazzulla can think about, like sticking the purpose guard onto Turner — even after a fever left Holiday bedridden with chills all day along with his standing undetermined till warmups. And so Boston confirmed Indiana loads of zone earlier than switching to man-to-man with reserve heart Xavier Tillman.
“We’ve switched up so many times and done so many different things against everybody in the league that we really feel like we can do a lot of different defensive stuff,” Holiday mentioned.
Holiday’s exclamation level of the night got here on that facet of the ground, a classic pickpocket in transition, however that got here solely after the veteran guard, the one Celtics participant to maintain a championship ring, lowered his shoulder into Pascal Siakam and delivered the go-ahead three-point play with 39 seconds left. Then, after Tatum’s final and closing drive missed vast, Holiday swarmed Pacers guard Aaron Nembhard as he introduced the rebound over the timeline. He absorbed a shoulder from Nembhard, who led Indiana with 32 factors, and Holiday even wanted to contact the wooden so as to preserve stability. But he’d crushed the sophomore guard to the spot, caught his chest in entrance of the child’s chest, and poked the ball free.
“That’s a trademark steal that he always gets with the inside hand,” Mazzulla mentioned. “He gets that a lot usually when the guy’s coming down the sideline in transition. I’ve been looking forward to a couple of those. He hasn’t gotten as many as I would have liked this year. It was a big-time play.”
There’s simply one thing about Game 3s. And that very same sample, a 3rd outing being Tatum’s first of the series on the street, waits earlier than Boston within the NBA Finals. The Celtics are only one win in need of reaching the championship spherical for the second time in three years. And but, these Celtics know precisely what wants to be taken care of on Monday. A 12 months in the past, they received three straight after falling into this actual gap towards Miami.
“We know for one second we can’t relax,” Tatum mentioned.