With 22 minutes to keep the Celtics’ postseason alive, Jaylen Brown dove out of bounds after a loose ball and swatted it perfectly to teammate Luke Kornet. Celtics assistant coaches swarmed No. 7, pulling him up to his feet so he could shoot two free throws on the other end of the parquet.
It was one of countless moments the Celtics strung together in their first elimination game without Jayson Tatum in eight years – and it was emblematic of the scrappy and selfless play that won Boston Game 5, 127-102, over the New York Knicks. Derrick White had a team-high 34 points, but Brown was the leader who truly kept Boston’s foot on the pedal through 11 lead changes in the first three quarters.
The atmosphere at the beginning of the evening in TD Garden was undeniably strange. Earlier in the day, Tatum shared a post-surgery photo on social media, thanking fans from a hospital bed with a soft smile and his right Achilles heavily wrapped. Around Boston, talk show debates ranged from rehabilitation timetables to luxury tax penalties.
Actual basketball? An afterthought.
"I didn't hear nothing. There's always talk. Good talk, bad talk. I try to justt block it all out. We came in yesterday and watched film, looked each other in the eye, and got ready to go," White said postgame.
Disastrous city traffic and an early 7 p.m. tip-off left the stands a quarter empty at the game’s start. To make matters worse, Mikal Bridges tallied the first Knicks points of the game and it was immediately obvious the New York fans caught the Amtrak north expecting to see their team advance.
They were in for a rude awakening.
The Celtics burst out of halftime, tied up at 59, but put on a defensive display that would have had the late Tommy Heinsohn leaping out of his chair. Brown exchanged shoves with New York’s Josh Hart to start the quarter, and it was on. A combination of Kornet’s fantastic sub-in for an ailing Kristaps Porzingis and Boston’s athletic backcourt held the Knicks to just 17 points in the quarter and 20% shooting. While Boston swung the ball around – finally avoiding the dribble-induced live ball turnovers that have plagued them this entire series – Karl-Anthony Towns and Jalen Brunson unraveled.
The second half was a string of moments that were special enough to almost make one forget about the realities waiting for the Celtics outside the building. It’s complicated out there in the real world. Tatum is hospitalized. The team has been sold. The roster will cost nearly half-a-billion dollars to maintain next season. Inside TD Garden, the Celtics’ problems had easy answers. Kornet could block a Josh Hart drive. Pritchard could sidestep his defender to drain a 3-pointer. White and Brown could get to the free throw line…17 times in one half.
That’s the beauty of basketball. At its core, it’s a simple game. It’s not just about 3-pointers, just like it’s not just about points in the paint, or turnovers, or zone defenses, or double drags or horns or timeouts - or all the other nonsense. It’s five guys, and what they bring each trip up and down the floor.
Nobody really knows what the future holds for this team, but this much is certain: the champions showed up on the parquet Wednesday night.