BOSTON – For the first time since they won the NBA championship on their home floor, the Celtics organized an eliminatory match at TD Garden, and Orlando Magic paid for match 1 in a first round series.
Here is how difficult mathematics are for magic: their two best players, Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner, combined for 59 points (24 for 51 FG), outperforming the two best Boston players, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown (33 points combined on 14-36 FG), and again they were fighting all afternoon.
Advertisement
Banchero and Co. played hard, as they do, even by taking an advantage of 49-48 in the locker room at halftime, only so that the Celtics release their reigning interior champion in a third dominant quarter. Led by the 30 points of Derrick White, Boston took care of the business in the opening of the series with a 103-86 Victory.
Celtics are too deep for magic. Payton Pritchard, a finalist of the sixth man of the year, embodied this, marking 11 points in his first five minutes and ending with 19 on only eight shots. Celtics employees travel the 27 -year -old player. On the Jumbotron, the Celtics questioned their players about their biggest bane. Pritchard? “When people don't make a full effort.” This is the kind of player he is.
“It's another dog,” said Brown. “He showed that all year round with his mentality and his state of mind, and it will be more of that of competence or strategy. It will be more fighting. This is the other side of the game that we have to win. This is the season. So, we owe the game, it's not different.”
Advertisement
It took a certain fight for the Celtics to manage these magic. Orlando went back to Boston in the first half, entering 10 offensive boards, and that was looking for a moment as if we could see the Celtics of yesteryear – those who do not take their opponent as seriously as they should. And then Boston had the second half. This did not matter much about the Celtics head coach, Joe Mazzulla, who later spoke as if his team had lost his way.
“We have to be better,” said Mazzulla. “There are better opportunities for change there. We can be better to bounce back, better in boxing. We must better have our space on the offensive side. In the end, it is a game, and there is a whole litany of possessions on which we must improve.”
It took a little Tatum fight, above all. He awkwardly land On his shooting wrist after difficult faults by Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Wendell Carter Jr. Caldwell-Pope received a blatant-1 fault. Said Tatum his thrilling wrist. Although the feeling decreased, he received an x -ray after the match.
“It's clean,” said Tatum, whose wrist was neither frozen nor wrapped after the game. “It's good.”
Advertisement
It will take more combat from Brown, which has rested bone bruises in its right knee for the last three games of the regular season. The Celtics do not seem too concerned. Brown, although he will not openly discuss how he had to adjust his game to pain. Even it was a little soothed with his rest.
“We are just beginning,” said Brown, whose two -handed dunk at the end of the third quarter was proof of his health. “Today was my first match after a while. These are the playoffs, and it's the best time of the year, so I'm excited. That's why I live. I feel much better, moving much better, so I think it's great.”
Advertisement
It had to be a welcome sign for the Celtics to also see a quality game by Jrue Holiday. He played his usual robust defense and added three 3 points, including one on a flight that opened the match in the third quarter. He was also struck, dealing with Mallet Finger on the little pink in his shooting hand.
“It's the Jrue that I like,” added Brown. “This is the jrue against which I remember in competition. The regular season is different from the playoffs. I know that sometimes you all forget. The level of intensity is very different. Physics is very different. Jrue loves the environment as much as I do.
Everything worked for Boston, except for the best of Tatum and Brown. It probably comes in this series too – and beyond – which is a bad sign for magic and the rest of the NBA.
