The season is still young, meaning there are only so many data points to work off of, but the Celtics have overall impressed in their close games thus far. They improved to 5-2 in clutch games after their 102-100 win over the Grizzlies on Sunday, narrowly beating a shorthanded squad on the road.
The C’s have endured their clutch-games woes in past seasons, though there are luck factors that go into those stats, much like it did in Sunday’s win. But thus far, the C’s have taken care of business in a big way. Entering Sunday’s game, the Celtics led the NBA with an eye-popping plus-37.7 net rating in clutch games.
So while they’ve had some losses, they’ve shown some good things and learnable mistakes in crunch time. C’s big man Kristaps Porzingis is a huge reason for that, though he chose to credit one of his teammates for Boston’s early success in close games.
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“I think (Jayson Tatum), JT is a very stoic guy,” Porzingis told NBC Sports Boston’s Abby Chin. “In these situations, he’s very emotionless and he leads us. He leads us in these kinds of situations. He had a big bucket, made a big play. He did toward the end.”
The Celtics improved to 11-2 on the season after their sixth straight victory, including a perfect 3-0 mark on their current four-game road trip. They wrap up the trip with a 7 p.m. Monday game against the Hornets on the back-to-back. Even with the Grizzlies shorthanded and struggling this season, they still fought Sunday to force a close game against the Celtics.
Of course, there luck goes into clutch games. The C’s and Grizzlies played to a frantic finish, and Porzingis got the clutch block — his sixth of the night — to close out the victory. But the Grizzlies had a chance after Jrue Holiday missed a dunk that would’ve put the Celtics up two possessions. Santi Aldama had an open look at 3 with four seconds left that would’ve put the Grizzlies up. Instead, he missed the shot and the Celtics came away with the win.
Still, the Celtics executed down the stretch to get into the lead in the first place — they get credit for that. They were down in the final two minutes before Porzingis scored the game’s last four points, boosting his total to a team-high 26 points. It was a similar situation in the Raptors game, when the C’s snatched that win in Toronto.
“We have great players, great leaders on this team,” Porzingis said. “We’re capable of controlling our composure at the end and win these tight games.”
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