INDIANAPOLIS — Joe Mazzulla and the Celtics have taken their lumps throughout the regular season, particularly in crunch time situations. Whether it was predictable play calling or timeout mismanagement, more than a handful of Celtics losses this year came with second guesses.
Boston entered Game 3 with a 2-0 record in clutch games this postseason but one of those wins included just a brief period of a tight ballgame (Cleveland). The other was in Game 1 against the Pacers where Indiana gift wrapped a victory for Boston with some crucial late-game turnovers.
The equation was different this time around. Boston was on the road and trailing by 18 points in the second half and eight points with just 2:38 remaining on the clock. The Celtics were going to have to take this win themselves rather than have it handed to them and they would need some help along the way. Jayson Tatum, Al Horford and Jrue Holiday all made big plays when it counted as Boston closed the game on a 13-2 run. However, Joe Mazzulla also bested Rick Carlisle in the crunch time game management department to ensure Boston got one more step closer to the NBA Finals.
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Rallying the troops
The Pacers shot the lights out in the first half particularly from inside the arc but Joe Mazzulla was credited by both his stars postgame for keeping morale up.
“Joe just kind of told us stop feeling sorry for ourselves and whatever situation we in, that’s the situation that we’re in and, uh, showing us to, to figure it out,” Jayson Tatum said.” We kind of felt lucky that we were playing as bad per se, as we were and how well they were shooting the ball and we were only down 13, 14 points on the road and we still had a lot of time left to win the game. So it was one of those time outs maybe with like five minutes left in the third where we kind of turned it around.”
Boston closed out the third quarter on a 15-6 run, setting the stage for them to be within striking distance for the fourth quarter. The Pacers suddenly got tight with their shooting while the Celtics chipped away within single digits.
Rotation changes
With the Celtics running into trouble on the glass and defensively in the first half, Mazzulla opted for a bigger, more defensive look in the second half. Xavier Tillman (+12) got minutes at power forward and center over Oshae Brissett while Sam Hauser saw more time than Payton Pritchard.
The minor tweaks helped the Celtics bench stay afloat despite their struggles offensively since they were able to get stops. From there, Boston’s starters carried the scoring load when it counted and the Pacers second chance opportunities also started to disappear.
“It took us a little while to figure out how we were going to match up with them in order to slow them down and put us in the best position,” Mazzulla said. “Without Haliburton, they went to some of their different stuff, and they had a lot of speed. So I never felt like it was our offense, I felt like it was our defense, and I thought we took it to another level in the second half.”
Timeout management
Mazzulla is normally a guy who desperately likes to hold onto his timeouts, sometimes to the team’s detriment. Yet, the contrast with Rick Carlisle was evident in the final minute of Game 3 and favored Boston once more.
After the Celtics rebounded a Andrew Nembhard miss with 32 seconds on the clock, Jrue Holiday got the ball up past half court but trouble lurked as the Pacers surrounded him. With Boston holding tight to a one-point lead, Mazzulla would still have been content to let this team figure the possession out and run some clock. Instead, the Celtics coach sensed trouble with defenders swarming Holiday. A turnover or poor shot choice would have been disastrous in this spot. Mazzulla settled Boston down and drew up a great look for Tatum on Boston’s ensuing possession. He missed the bunny at the rim (perhaps a poor rim read) but it was a great play call (Tatum/Horford pick-and-roll) that had great spacing.
Once the Pacers grabbed the rebound, Boston’s defense was already set back. Meanwhile, Carlisle declined to call timeout in the one-point game despite the fact Nembhard was attempting to go 1-on-4 against a Celtics defense that was ready for him. The smart play here for Carlisle would have been a timeout to draw something up. Instead, Holiday knew he had help behind him and used his instincts.
“I think I just made a play,” Holiday said. “Feel like he’s a right handed driver and he’s being very, very aggressive all night. Great player, had a great game, but, just made a play, kind of jumped his right hand and got the steal.”
The sequence showed just how far the Celtics and Mazzulla have come this year. For multiple playoffs runs, they were the team floundering in these moments. Game 3 was a sign of how far they’ve come.
