Celtics
To stay alive, the Celtics needed a near-perfect game from Jaylen Brown, and they got one.
Celtics guard Jaylen Brown drives to the basket during the second quarter in Game 5 against the Knicks at TD Garden.
Celtics guard Jaylen Brown drives to the basket during the second quarter in Game 5 against the Knicks at TD Garden. Danielle Parhizkaran/Globe Staff
Jaylen Brown and the Celtics aren’t yet ready to bow out into the postseason, claiming a 127-102 victory in front of an emotional TD Garden crowd on Wednesday.
Here are the takeaways.
Patient Jaylen Brown is an incredible basketball player
To stay alive, the Celtics needed a near-perfect game from Jaylen Brown, and they got one.
“Near-perfect” for Brown doesn’t mean a huge scoring night, although he was excellent on that front – 26 points on 9-for-17 shooting, including three loud 3-pointers. His scoring unlocks the Celtics with Jayson Tatum absent, but we all knew that would be the case.
The rest of Brown’s game is what propelled the Celtics forward and kept their season alive. Brown was unbelievably patient on the offensive end – when he got into the paint, he forced nothing, instead kicking the ball out against a defense collapsing inward to try to prevent him from scoring. He wasn’t always rewarded with an assist – one of the Celtics’ best plays of the game started when Brown collapsed the defense and ended with Kornet sliding to the rim for an open pick-and-roll dunk several passes later. Still, he was rewarded plenty – he finished with 12 assists and came just two rebounds short of a triple-double.
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But Brown’s biggest contributions may have come on the defensive end, where he took on the task of guarding Jalen Brunson and hounded the Knicks’ guard into a very tough game. Brunson finished with just 22 points on 7-for-17 shooting and he never got into the kind of game-breaking rhythm he used to give the Knicks the 3-1 advantage they enjoyed entering Wednesday’s game.
“I thought his dive into the bench kind of changed the game for us,” Joe Mazzulla said. “There was other game-changing plays, but I thought that was one of them. So he was just great on all levels. Just took it upon himself to guard Brunson, set the tone, and he did that on both ends.”
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When Brown is locked in on the defensive end against a superstar opponent, he’s one of the league’s premier 1-on-1 defensive menaces – quick, bouncy and strong with a laser-focus (a laser-focus that, at times, makes you wish he was that good off the ball as well).
When Brown is patient on the offensive end, he’s often every bit as impactful as Tatum – an underrated passer at this stage in his career and an explosive scorer.
When he puts those two things together, he can give an opposing team something to sweat about heading into a crucial Game 6.
“Just be who I am, and I think that’s it,” Brown said. “Just be myself, come out, be aggressive, and get it done in multiple ways. It’s a team, we’ve always been a team. I’ve always preached team. I’ve done whatever to kind of push this team forward.
“So whatever is needed on me, I’m excited to be able to facilitate in whatever role, so it could change each game, each night, defensively, offensively, but the goal is to just lead, just be myself.”
Jalen Brunson committed five fouls in the third quarter (and one in the fourth)
The Celtics kept building massive leads against the Knicks early in the series only to see them leak away like water cupped between two hands.
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What they hadn’t tried yet was getting Jalen Brunson to foul out, which probably isn’t exactly a sustainable strategy, but it worked incredibly well on Wednesday. Brunson committed five fouls in the third quarter as the Celtics pulled far ahead – including a couple of very unnecessary ones for fouls four and five – and he committed his sixth with 7:19 minutes remaining in the fourth.
Brunson struggled against Brown’s aforementioned defense, and the Celtics attacked him repeatedly and patiently. That strategy has now worked against both Brunson and Towns at various times in the series, and as the Celtics look ahead to a Game 6 that few thought they would see, they will need to consider how they can make both players work as much as possible on the defensive end.
Luke Kornet changed the game for the Celtics
The Celtics and Knicks were tied at 59 coming out of the break and appeared headed for yet another incredibly tight finish.
Then a Celtics player took over, and if we gave you five guesses before the game as to “which Celtics player will take over in the third quarter,” we doubt you would guess it.
Luke Kornet started the third quarter on the floor and his presence completely changed the game. He recorded five of his seven blocks in the period, clogging the paint and sending the Celtics the other direction repeatedly, and he pulled down five rebounds.
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Offensively, Kornet got plenty of help from Brown, Derrick White and Jrue Holiday, but the Celtics held the Knicks to 17 points in the quarter in large part because they could not get anything going near the rim.
Kornet finished shockingly close to a triple-double as well: 10 points, 10 rebounds and seven blocked shots. Expect to see him play a major role (and maybe even start) going forward.
“He was unbelievable,” Derrick White said. “He came in and just seemed to always be in the right position. Seven blocks is crazy. He was unbelievable tonight and really stepped up when we needed him. He’s had a great season and was big-time for us tonight.”
Kornet, meanwhile, was surprised to find himself being interviewed after the third quarter.
“You just sort of take it,” he said. “I unfortunately was a little tired and didn’t have my usual wit and charm.”
Kristaps Porzingis was the exact opposite
Going forward, the Celtics will also need to consider to what extent Porzingis can be part of the rotation – in stark contrast to Kornet, Porzingis played 12 minutes and was -12 in a game the Celtics won by 25 points.
Porzingis simply doesn’t look healthy, the Celtics’ margin for error has never been smaller, and the case for Porzingis would be that he’s the Celtics’ best rim protector – a case that Kornet sent packing into the third row on Wednesday.
After the game, Mazzulla provided a concerning update.
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“He couldn’t breathe,” Mazzulla said. “He was available if absolutely necessary. So that was just a decision between me and him. He was having difficulties breathing, but he wanted to be out there, and if we absolutely needed him, we would have been able to go to him and rely on him.”
Derrick White’s time to shine
White is close to a star-quality player – not quite an All-Star, but certainly more than a role player on a team that largely needs high-quality role players when fully healthy.
However, Tatum’s injury ensured that the Celtics won’t be fully healthy for the foreseeable future. On Wednesday, White was enormous: A game-high 34 points on 16 shots, including 7-for-13 from 3-point range.
“I mean, our back’s against the wall,” White said. “It’s win or go home at this moment, so none of us want to go home. We understand that it’s only going to get tougher. We haven’t won anything yet, just gotta find a way to go to New York and win a game.”
White’s 3-point shooting was excellent, but he also went to the free-throw line 11 times. With Tatum out, the ball will be in White’s hands much more, which is something of a silver-lining – White is a great decision-maker and plays a highly efficient brand of basketball.
“It’s not like someone can step and do what JT does at the level he does it,” White said. “So we kind of have to play a little differently and just find ways to create offense, to rebound, just everything he does on the court. Everybody’s got to step up. We did that tonight, and we’ve got to try to find a way to win Game 6.”
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The Celtics showed their mettle. They shouldn’t be content with that.
The Celtics are a championship-caliber team oozing with playoff experience and championship-quality mental strength, which is what made it so stunning that they went down 2-0 at home against the Knicks in the first place.
Wednesday’s game wasn’t just a team fighting for pride after its star went down – the Celtics were the better, more fundamental team. They have now led the Knicks by 14 points or more in every game, and they’ve led by 20 or more in four of them. In two of those games, the Celtics shot their worst games all year, and on Wednesday, they built a 20-plus point lead without Tatum.
The Celtics should not consider Wednesday’s win a point of pride. In fact, now that it’s over, they shouldn’t consider it at all. They are unquestionably the underdogs and by far the less likely team to move on, but they are good enough to be thinking less about what they proved on Wednesday and more about what they could accomplish on Friday.
“Four hours ago, we just had to win one game,” Mazzulla said. “Now, we just have to win one game. That’s just kind of how you have to look at it. So we’ve got to win one road game.”
Game 6 tips off at 8 p.m. at Madison Square Garden.
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