Three Positive Signs After Celtics Blowout Pacers By 51 Points
Can the Celtics top a 155-point clinic?
BOSTON — The Celtics looked like an unbeatable team on Wednesday night, and to the Pacers, that’s what they were.
Boston was positioned for a cakewalk victory at home over Indiana, and that’s what happened. From the opening tip, the foot was on the gas and it never slipped, resulting in a not-so-competitive 155-104 Boston victory to still remain undefeated through four games, kicking off the 2023-24 run.
There’s a lot more to unpack there than meets the eye.
Yes, the Celtics were supposed to win that game in blowout fashion by their standards, however, they did a lot more than just that.
Last season, on a handful of occasions, the Celtics toyed with teams through their offense, that on some nights, can’t be matched. That’s just a simple way of viewing what the Celtics did, not only to the Pacers but for themselves.
The Celtics were much different, a very new-look team in more ways than just the names taking the floor. The Green flags, in fact, could even skyrocket Boston ahead of its current tug-a-war conversation for top dog in the Eastern Conference with the Milwaukee Bucks, should the Celtics replicate parts of that performance on a consistent basis.
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Here are three Green flags from the win:
1.) The maturity is appearing and it’s only been four games
Just four games — that’s it.
That’s all it took for a team with a core tasked with welcoming in Kristaps Porzingis, Jrue Holiday and others, to play like a complete puzzle. There’s been no struggle in keeping the hot hand hot. There’s been no hurdle in getting everyone involved. Instead, the depth continues to prove itself so dominant that Boston’s departures likely won’t be as heartbreaking as they were in real-time.
After the first quarter, in which the Celtics tallied 44 points, it was game over.
Everyone contributed, and the most shocking part, it didn’t take a 50-bomb or even a 40-bomb. Jayson Tatum was the leading scorer with 30 points and because of the red-hot start that never ended, Boston head coach Joe Mazzulla was able to allow Tatum and the starters to kick their feet back on the bench and watch the clock run out.
“We got everything, right?” Holiday said after the win. “We have the paint, we have the mid-range and we have the three. I feel like that threat makes us even harder to guard. At any moment, if our 3-pointer is not falling, we can go into the paint and post up.”
All eligible players took the floor, scored and even registered a positive plus-minus, playing a perfect four quarters of basketball.
For an added sweetener, there was (as expected) even some historical context in place. It marked the most points Boston scored in franchise history since dropping 173 points over the then-Minneapolis Lakers in 1959, according to ESPN Stats & Info. At the time, Bill Russell was a third-year veteran and Tatum was negative 39 years of age.
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2.) Boston’s reserve unit held the fort down and didn’t fold
The contribution wasn’t limited to the starting lineup, which was rewarding for a number of reasons.
Obviously, it allowed Mazzulla’s go-to five to rest, but it also posed an encouraging sign for a crew of unproven reserves. Just a few nights prior, against the Washington Wizards, another subpar opponent, the bench wasn’t nearly as effective. Scoring production was a challenge and the bench nearly prompted a blowout to collapse into a nail-bitter down the wire.
The Celtics built a big lead and always held a big lead.
Sam Hauser (17) and Payton Pritchard (15) combined for 32 points while the bench entirely generated 63 points of offense, including 46 in the fourth quarter. The confidence of entering halftime with a 75-54 lead was not only daunting for Indiana but contagious for the supporting cast overall.
There was never a point at which the Pacers threatened, and the bench not only closed the game out, but they slammed the door shut.
“They were organized, they got to their spots faster,” Mazzulla said of the reserve unit. “I thought Payton did a good job organizing. I thought Dalano (Banton) and (others) got their spacing. I thought they ran plays for Sam. … I just thought we played with more sense of purpose.”
3.) Third-quarter woes out the window?
Leads are only as valuable as they’re treated.
That was the story last season from the first 82 games and into the playoffs. It doesn’t matter what happens in the first half if in crunch time, it all goes out the window and the storyline changes in the snap of a finger.
It seems as within the new-shown maturity that Boston exuberated, the Celtics are quickly learning to prevent exactly that. The urgency didn’t disappear when the lead grew from 20 to 30. The intensity didn’t take a break and with that tunnel vision came a performance that many Celtics fans haven’t lived to compare.
The Celtics outscored the Pacers in the third quarter, 34-17, and took advantage of scoring from the inside. Boston relied heavily on outside shooting on a night-to-night basis last season, making the offense predictable and unreliable when the 3-point shot wasn’t falling. But in the third, the Celtics attacked their mismatches, going 7-of-12 from inside the paint, showcasing the frontcourt aggressiveness that could carry Boston to new heights if established and cemented early.
Moving ahead, that ceiling can only be raised in order for Boston to apply that single performance into an entire season and into a much-anticipated postseason run toward Banner 18.
“We’ll take it game by game,” Holiday explained. “I think these first early games we’ve played, every game we’ve had a different challenge thrown at us and we lock into the tendencies, lock into the gameplan and it’s kind of how we challenge ourselves.”
