Celtics Emphasize ‘Maturity’ After Jaw-Dropping Win Over Pacers

BOSTON — It’s only been four games and the Celtics are already firing on all cylinders, more importantly establishing one critical component of any championship-caliber team: maturity.

With a young tandem in Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown — both entering their respective prime years — there’s an obvious inevitability of early career dog days. They’ve been through that. And in putting that chapter in the rearview mirror, the Celtics took a noteworthy step in forming their 2023-24 campaign into the strongest within the Tatum-Brown era — making an example out of the Indiana Pacers on Wednesday night.

“Tonight, we showed maturity and mental toughness to, like, (go on) a run and make them call a timeout,” Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla said after Boston’s 155-104 win over the Pacers. “You see games in the NBA where it doesn’t always go that way. The other team comes out, it’s a 6-to-8-0 run and then now the dynamic of the game changes. Our guys are well aware of that and hats off to them for just competing at a high, high level for the entire game. It’s just who they are, it’s them.”

From the very start, after opening the night with a 44-point first quarter, the Celtics established their identity for the night. They weren’t gonna give in and it was gonna take an improbable effort from Indiana, not to win, but to make the contest, at the very least, competitive.

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Boston prevented that and opened the floodgates for an offensive outpour that couldn’t be any more encouraging, right?

Jayson Tatum recorded his second double-double of the season, scoring a game-high 30 points alongside 12 rebounds — the promising foundation of any Celtics win. Yet, the pressure didn’t start and end with Tatum or any of Mazzulla’s starting five.

Refusing to fall content and cozy, even after being ahead 21 points at halftime, the entire roster had a helping hand. The bench scored 63 points, including 46 in the fourth quarter, everyone scored and all of Boston’s 13 roster members who took the floor registered a positive plus-minus when the final buzzer sounded at TD Garden.

There was no release of the foot from the gas and whenever someone sat, the next man entered and carried the torch, playing with the same level of intensity that put Indiana to sleep after just one quarter of play.

“I think there’s a maturity, there’s a competitive nature being able to just lock into whoever you’re playing against,” Jrue Holiday said postgame. “I know there’s times where there’s a lesser-caliber team or how you look at a team on the stat sheet, you can be like, ‘Alright, this can be an easy night for us.’ But, again, I think that’s a part of the mindset we’re having is each game is different. Each game is an NBA game so each player’s an NBA player and at any night they can go out and give you 40, 50 points. I think as a team we’ve really locked into that mentality.”

There aren’t many teams with the capability to replicate a 150-point-plus offensive clinch, much less a team with championship expectations in place. Therefore, to say it was a good leap toward Banner 18 isn’t a stretch, but a suitable way to view a dominant night for the C’s.