Boston Celtics
Tatum and Jaylen Brown each posted 25 points in what felt like a must-win game for Boston.
Jayson Tatum led Boston to a Game 3 win. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown were huge in the fourth quarter as the Celtics eked out a tough Game 3 win to take a 2-1 series lead against the 76ers.
Here are the takeaways.
Jayson Tatum came up huge
After the game, sideline reporter Kristina Pink asked Tatum why he comes through in big moments like Friday’s win.
Tatum paused for a beat to consider the question and smiled.
“I’ve been here before,” he said.
He certainly has — both “here” as in the playoffs, and “here” as in Wells Fargo Arena, playing a massively important playoff game against the Sixers in a very hostile environment.
So it probably shouldn’t have come as a huge surprise that when Kelly Oubre helped off Tatum to contain a drive by Nikola Vucevic, Tatum was able to step into a huge 3-pointer and bury it to extend a one point Celtics lead to four, nor should it have come as a surprise when — with the Celtics leading by 3 and just 26 seconds remaining — Tatum stuck a dagger 3-pointer into the Sixers and pounded his chest with a big scream as he returned to the Celtics’ huddle.
Tatum said the moment — his first road playoff game since his injury, and simply another meaningful postseason game — meant a lot.
“Just the environment, the circumstance of being tied 1-1 and knowing what’s on the line and just being in a position to kind of seal the game as a competitor, as a basketball player, just you see those emotions come out in those moments,” Tatum said.
Tatum finished with 25 points — no small achievement in a rock fight like Friday’s game — and he dished out seven assists to go with four rebounds. After missing two momentum-shifting 3-pointers in Game 2, he was 5-for-9 from deep in Game 3. His final triple brought him over 3,000 playoff points in his career.
Tatum has had bigger games against the Sixers — the 51-point outpouring in a 2023 Game 7 leaps to mind — but these contests mean a lot to him after last year, and perhaps more to the point, all of the big games that came before prepared him for this one.
“We’ve just been in this scenario time and time again,” Tatum said. “Times we’ve fallen short and times we’ve succeeded. It’s all about just learning from past experiences and whether it’s the first play of the game or crunch time, it’s just about making the right read and making the right play.”
Jaylen Brown was prepared, too
Brown’s contributions weren’t as late as Tatum’s, but they were just as impactful.
From the 6:44 mark in the fourth to 3:14, Brown was responsible for all 10 of the Celtics’ points. He started by picking off a lazy pass by Tyrese Maxey. Urging Derrick White to follow him up the floor, Brown finally dished to his teammate, and White finished off the layup in transition.
Then Brown scored eight straight, including two incredibly contested shots inside the paint.
Tatum and Brown had remarkably similar games. Like Tatum, Brown finished with 25 points, and his statline was 25-7-4 instead of 25-4-7. He was 9-for-16 instead of 9-for-17, and like Tatum, he made Celtics playoff history, surpassing Bill Russell and Robert Parish on the list of all-time playoff scorers.
“All your preparation and stuff comes down to those moments,” Brown said. “Both teams are tired, your team is maybe offensively in a little bit of a rut, you’ve got to figure out how to get a basket, you’ve got to figure out how to create some momentum for your team, and I feel like I did just enough to shift things in our favor.”
For lengthy stretches, the Celtics looked shaky. They haven’t been a great clutch team all year. You would be well within your rights to be scared by Tyrese Maxey. Nothing about Friday’s game felt guaranteed.
The Celtics, however, are built for these moments.
“We’ve been there before, so no moment is too big,” Brown said. “We’re just big-time players making big-time plays.”
Derrick White’s rough night
On the one hand, Derrick White had another brutal shooting performance — 3-for-12 from the floor, 1-for-8 from deep — and he ran directly into Adem Bona on the first play of the game, trying to navigate around a screen. White immediately crumpled to the floor holding his head and neck, and he confirmed afterward that he “speared” Bona, hurting his neck.
“It didn’t feel great, but it was all right,” White said. “I wouldn’t say it went away, but I was able to play out there, so it’s good.”
On the other hand, White was part of the reason VJ Edgecombe shot 5-for-17 from the floor, and he grabbed offensive rebounds late that led to both of the shots that you can see above.
White’s shooting struggles are a little confounding, but even on a tough night, he was actively helpful down the stretch.
“I could say it 100 times: We need him, we need him, we need him,” Tatum said. “And it’s tough. As a basketball player, we’ve all been through it where you’re not hitting shots at the rate that you expect to or want to. Sometimes, you just don’t make them. But D-White is an unreal basketball player that still just has his imprint on the game. […]
“Never turn down a shot, and, you know, law of averages. He’s going to start knocking them down.”
Nikola Vucevic played extended minutes
Once again, Neemias Queta struggled to stay on the floor, picking up four quick fouls. Rather than letting Queta foul out, Mazzulla capped him at just under 13 minutes and let Nikola Vucevic take the lion’s share of the minutes.
Vucevic was a mixed bag. He hit three 3-pointers and scored 11 points, but he turned the ball over four times, and he made several big mistakes on the defensive end — helping off players at the wrong time, and committing five fouls himself.
Queta’s inability to stay on the floor is now a recurring issue in this series and could have been a lot more costly on Friday.
“Whenever you get a win and you’re able to help the team, it’s always fun,” Vucevic said. “It’s what you want to do as a professional athlete, be in these moments, be in big games, be able to deliver for your teammates. It was a good win and on to the next one.”
The Celtics turned the ball over a lot
As obsessive as the Celtics are about the margins, they actually were quite good in the regular season when they turned the ball over a lot — they finished 15-5 when they turned the ball over 15 times or more.
Still, the 17 turnovers on Friday were sloppy and uncharacteristic, and they felt like an indicator that the Celtics were a little shaken by their Game 2 loss.
“We had some mistakes,” Mazzulla said. “That’s going to happen in a game, but I liked the mindset that we had — the competitiveness, the togetherness. I thought there was great communication, great body language, great togetherness, just things that can help you get through stuff, especially when you play on the road.”
Payton Pritchard hit a massive shot, too
As long as we’re talking about Celtics who made big shots, we shouldn’t forget Pritchard, who hit this 3-pointer, causing play-by-play announcer Eric Collins to scream, “OH he’s a killer!”
There might not be a better player in the league to throw the ball to at the end of the shot clock. Pritchard excels at creating his own shot quickly, and he excels in late-clock situations.
A ‘Game 7’ feel
The Celtics were quite open about how important Friday’s game felt.
“This was like a Game 7 for us,” Brown said. “Even though this is a long series, we definitely wanted to come back and respond after dropping one on our home floor. Can’t lose two games in a row in the playoffs. It’s tough. So this was a big win for us.”
One of Mazzulla’s favorite themes during the postseason is that a series is going to be difficult. Much like tough times in life, you can’t avoid it — you simply have to go through it, and you have to accept that what is going to be will be.
“A series is going to take on a life of its own,” Mazzulla said on Friday. “You have to just sit in it. You can’t rush for it to be over. You can’t expect it to be over. You can’t go into a playoff series with levels of expectation. You have to just go in and settle in, and that’s physically, mentally and emotionally, you’ve got to settle into it.
“I think the guys are great at that, to the point of like, this is what you sign up for. I mean, they are pushing us. We have to push them.”
What’s next
The Celtics will look for a massive Game 4 win and a 3-1 series lead on Sunday at 7 p.m. The series returns to Boston for Game 5 on Tuesday.
Get the latest Boston sports news
Receive updates on your favorite Boston teams, straight from our newsroom to your inbox.
