Jayson Tatum and the Celtics made a frantic fourth-quarter rally back from a 24-point second-half deficit to send Wednesday’s game against the Pacers to overtime, but Pascal Siakam’s 3-pointer sank them in the closing seconds.
Here are the takeaways.
1. Jayson Tatum came up big but was ice-cold from 3.
Criticizing Tatum after Wednesday’s performance feels a little unfair given that he dragged the Celtics over the finish line in the fourth quarter. Tatum’s huge triple in the waning seconds evened the score.
Then the Celtics nearly got another opportunity after Tyrese Haliburton missed a potential game-winning 3-pointer, but time expired before they could call timeout. Tatum scored 11 points in the fourth quarter, including seven in the last 1:28 of regulation and finished 37 points, eight rebounds, four assists and four steals. He earned 15 trips to the free-throw line as well.
Tatum also, however, was 5-for-18 from 3-point range, which makes him 13-for-44 since opening night (29.5 percent). The sample size is minuscule, of course (sandwiched in between his poor shooting against the Bucks and Wizards was a solid night against the Pistons), but a better shooting performance from Tatum might have prevented the need for an overtime.
2. The Celtics had a tough 3-point shooting evening overall.
Tatum was far from the only player who struggled from behind the arc.
Jaylen Brown was the biggest offender — a disastrous 1-for-11 from deep as part of an 11-for-30 performance with three turnovers that left a lot to be desired, even though he packed the box score in other areas.
“Just all night, just didn’t have my legs up under me. No explosion. No burst, and I think that cost us,” Brown told reporters afterward.
Jrue Holiday was 1-for-3.
Sam Hauser was 1-for-4.
In a true indicator of how cold the Celtics were, even Payton Pritchard was 4-for-11 — a respectable 36.4 percent from deep, but far below his recent torrid pace.
The Celtics can still win games when they aren’t making 3-pointers, but the margins close quite a bit. A 19-for-57 shooting performance isn’t the end of the world (33.3 percent), and 57 three-point attempts is a nice indicator that the Celtics generated plenty of good shots, but they need to win a lot of other areas under those circumstances, and before their late rally, the Pacers were crushing them.
“I felt like we had a lot of good looks tonight,” Brown said. “We didn’t really shoot the ball. Our energy was just lackluster. A lot of that was on me. I’ve got to be better for my guys.”
3. Benedict Mathurin and Pascal Siakam punished the Celtics.
The Celtics seem to have plenty of answers for Tyrese Haliburton, but Benedict Mathurin sliced them up both in transition and in half-court sets, going 9-for-17 en route to 30 points. Mathurin’s finishing around the rim gave the Celtics fits, and once he got in a rhythm, he made two of his five 3-point attempts.
Siakam wasn’t quite as efficient (11-for-20), but he finished 6-for-8 from behind the arc, and his final 3-pointer was the difference in overtime.
“I think Siakam, this was the best I’ve seen him shoot the ball, at least against us,” Brown said. “Usually, we guard him a little differently, but he shot the ball extremely well tonight. That last one, we got the switch, and we were just a little bit maybe too low. He felt good all night, and he was able to knock it down. Big shot.”
The Pacers are streaky and can give up big leads as fast as they build them, but they aren’t just a team with a difficult system to solve – they also have a lot of very good basketball players who can hurt you in a variety of ways.
4. Derrick White is a big-game player.
Derrick White continued to make his (extremely) early push as a potential third All-Star from the Celtics, scoring 23 points on 8-for-9 shooting and 5-for-5 from behind the arc. With the exception of a late foul that prevented the Celtics from forcing a crucial shot-clock violation, White had a nearly flawless game and was one of the few players who was largely above criticism (more on the second, who came off the bench and had a huge impact, in a minute).
White scored five of his points, including one of his 3-pointers, in overtime.
5. Transition defense is something to watch.
Prior to Wednesday’s game, the Celtics were surrendering 1.26 points per possession in transition, which is 29th in the league.
The Pacers outscored the Celtics 29-21 in transition and had the Celtics on their heels for much of the evening. The Celtics were able to hit the Pacers back as well (Boston’s transition offense is third in the NBA at 1.27 points per possession, so it has shaken out in the wash so far), but fast, chaotic teams like the Pacers have a chance to hurt the Celtics when they get out on a fast break.
“Credit to Indiana, I thought their speed, their pace, they were a step ahead of us,” Joe Mazzulla said.
Once again, the sample size is tiny, but the results are worth watching.
6. Neemias Queta changed the game.
Trailing by 21 with 8:54 remaining, the Celtics subbed in Xavier Tillman, Jordan Walsh, and Neemias Queta, moves that didn’t quite wave the white flag but did show that they were considering it.
Queta, however, had other plans. The big man immediately threw down an alley-oop dunk, then started gobbling up rebounds and flying all over the floor. He recorded a big block, and even assisted on a layup by Pritchard. In 13 minutes, Queta finished with nine rebounds and was +18 in a game the Celtics lost by three.
7. Jaylen Brown added eight pounds of muscle.
According to the ESPN broadcast, Brown added eight pounds of muscle in the offseason, which feels a little low — as color analyst Jay Bilas quipped, Brown looks like he added eight pounds of muscle in each arm.
The key? His water dumbbell workouts. If you are a gym-goer hoping to look like Brown, you might need to find out what your local YMCA’s policy is on dumbbells in the deep end.
8. You’ve got to make your free throws.
In overtime — in a game which, again, the Celtics lost by three — they went 3-for-6 from the free-throw line. The three misses included two in a row by Brown, followed by one by Tatum.
9. The Celtics won’t go 82-0.
The Celtics were always going to lose at some point, and a road loss to a good Pacers team that was off to a tough start and badly needed a get-right win over a good opponent is as good a place as any to break into that column.
“There’s two things to focus on,” Mazzulla said. “There’s making sure we get off so we’re not half a step behind, but you see what we’re capable of at our best, top to bottom. The guys fought, so that was good.”
The most interesting thing to watch going forward: Can the team as a whole, and Tatum in particular, snap out of this shooting funk quickly and find their footing again? Tatum’s new shooting form looks fantastic, but if it doesn’t help him avoid some of the shooting slumps he has encountered in the past, we’re mostly talking about aesthetics.
10. The road ahead
The Celtics continue their road trip with a back-to-back in Charlotte on Friday and Saturday, followed by a contest against the Hawks on Monday.
