BOSTON — The drama arrived late, but with enough intensity to fulfill the game’s immense promise.
The matchup between the defending champion Boston Celtics and undefeated Cleveland Cavaliers lived up to its billing as one of the premier games in this young regular season. Boston dominated the first half. Cleveland, looking to keep its perfect season intact, charged back with a big third-quarter run. As if to announce to everyone inside TD Garden that his team wouldn’t go down easily, if at all, Donovan Mitchell clapped his hands with force after cutting into the Boston lead early in the fourth quarter.
And then the Celtics, after losing their way early in the second half, needed to figure out how to survive the confident, surging Cavaliers. With the action on the court chippy and the Cleveland defense conceding no ground, buckets weren’t easy to produce. To save a 120-117 win, Boston needed Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum to overcome all of the Cavaliers’ defensive aggression.
“I thought both of them handled the pressure and the physicality well,” said Joe Mazzulla. “And we lulled the offense. We played a little bit slower, but it was more important to get to the proper spacing. It was more important to get our drive-and-kick reads. And they did a great balance of handling the pressure, driving to attack, driving to get to the free-throw line, driving to find guys. So I hope teams continue to be physical because it just gets us reps, and I thought they handled it really well.”
The Celtics’ skill often carries them. They have made more 3-pointers over their first 15 games (287) than any team has ever drained in a 15-game stretch. But to create those opportunities, a team needs to pressure the rim. In Tatum and Brown, Boston has two of the biggest, strongest wings in the league. When they harness their power, as they did for much of the game Tuesday night, an opponent better boast size all across the perimeter.
It wasn’t all the Cavaliers’ fault they didn’t have enough of it. With Dean Wade, Isaac Okoro and Caris LeVert all injured, the Cavaliers were missing most of their players with the combination of height, muscle and mobility to slow down the Celtics’ two All-Stars. Early on, it became apparent that Cleveland would run into some difficulties against Boston’s penetration. Even solid individual defense from the Cavaliers sometimes wasn’t enough.
Four minutes into the game, Tatum tried once to drive past Sam Merrill, but couldn’t do it. Tatum began to try again, but Merrill stayed in front of him a second time. Considering Tatum’s size advantage in the matchup, Merrill, not necessarily known for his defensive impact, did admirable work to stay in front of the All-Star and keep him away from the rim.
It didn’t matter. Just by posing such a significant threat, Tatum had already created the advantage his team needed. Based on the defensive positioning of the other Cavaliers, they were deeply concerned about Tatum’s chances of penetrating into the paint. Their fear of what he could do to Merrill allowed Brown to open up one pass away. Tatum didn’t have to actually beat Merrill to beat him. After Mitchell crept off Brown to wall off the paint, Tatum created an open 3-pointer with a simple pass to Brown.
At their best, the Celtics viciously expose a defense’s vulnerabilities. On Tuesday, they often targeted Cleveland’s smaller guards. Three of Brown’s eight assists came with Darius Garland as his primary defender. After Cleveland pulled within two five minutes into the fourth quarter, Boston twice hunted that switch. Brown slowly drove to a spot about 10 feet away from the basket before bumping Garland twice to create enough space to shoot a short jumper. Though that attempt missed, the Cavaliers could not secure the offensive rebound. Brown capitalized on the same matchup later in the possession. He drove to his left, beat Garland, drew the defensive help and found Tatum in the corner. Thanks to how Brown forced Cleveland into scramble mode, Tatum was able to beat a Jarrett Allen closeout and finish a dunk that put Boston ahead by four points.
Tatum and Brown scored all 12 of their combined fourth-quarter points at the rim and free-throw line. They combined for five of Boston’s six assists in the quarter; three of their assists came after paint touches by them. When they were forceful toward the rim, they created great offense for their team.
Though Brown and Tatum still sometimes settle for difficult outside jumpers (a couple of Tatum’s 3-pointers in the second half come to mind), they have also leveled up their physicality this season. Maybe it’s because they needed to do it; Mazzulla believes the league at large is playing with more force. Maybe it’s because they’re older, stronger and wiser now. Maybe it’s because, looking for any way to disrupt Boston’s potent offense, teams try their best to bump them and shove them and challenge them. That could impact Brown and Tatum if they let it.
“They’re trying to speed us up, trying to create turnovers,” Brown said. “Because if you don’t do anything, you just sit back and let us pick you apart. That doesn’t work. So it makes sense for them to try to be physical, try to speed up the game a little bit. But we’ve just gotta handle it, handle the coverages, take our time, be patient and trust the game and our teammates.”
For the first time in Tatum’s seven-plus year career, the Celtics are on pace to finish in the top half of the free-throw attempt rate leaderboard. Fourteenth place may not seem like much to brag about, but, after years of landing near the bottom of the league in that category, they are finally adding free throws to their long list of ways to score. Most of the difference has come from Tatum (8.5 free throw attempts per game) and Brown (7.6), who are on pace to set new career highs in free throw attempts per game. Brown is on pace to shatter his previous career high (5.1). After putting on muscle over the offseason, he entered Tuesday ranked second in the NBA in points per possession on post-up attempts, thanks partially to an outrageous free-throw attempt rate on such tries. He has leaned into bully ball, overpowering smaller defenders.
Brown has also used his strength to set up teammates for quality shots. Three minutes into the fourth quarter, with the Celtics clinging to a 3-point lead, they ran a play to get him against Garland in the post. Instead of forcing his own offense, as he might have done early in his career, Brown calmly powered his way into the paint. That forced Allen to shade over in help defense, freeing Neemias Queta on the baseline. Queta drew a foul after Brown dumped it off to him.
Brown set up his teammate to score by playing through the defense’s physicality.
“Just managing it, taking care of the basketball, still finding the right reads,” Brown said. “That’s it. Just being patient. Really being patient.”
Fair or not, the scouting report on the Celtics used to say that they would unravel in the game’s biggest moments. That they wouldn’t trust their team’s offense when it mattered most. That an opponent could ruffle them by ratcheting up the intensity high enough. They have solved many of their old issues and continue to evolve.
They didn’t love how they played in the third quarter while allowing most of a 21-point lead to disappear, but Mazzulla said they still accomplished his top priority.
“We were able to tighten up some of the stuff in the fourth quarter that we gave up in the third quarter, and we just showed a level of physicality that we can get to on both ends of the floor,” Mazzulla said. “I thought the guys did a great job. I thought we were physical the entire game, which I care more about throughout the regular season is our physicality, our toughness. The details are the second-most important thing, and we slipped a little bit of that in the third. But in the fourth, we picked up both of those things. But I thought we were extremely physical defensively, and I thought we were very poised and intentional on the offensive end. And I thought we made good reads.”
Even while handing the Cavaliers their first loss, Brown said the Celtics “could have played a whole lot better.” He believed they let their foot off the gas after dominating the first half.
They could still manage the game down the stretch with their physicality. Ending Cleveland’s 15-game winning streak must have felt nice but Al Horford said the Celtics’ focus was on themselves.
“It’s just about us,” Horford said. “It’s not about anything (else). It’s not about to prove to the league or anyone or anything. It’s a long season and we continue to make strides to be better.”