“You’ve got to tap into your darkness,” coach Joe Mazzulla said as the Celtics approached Saturday facing a 2-0 series deficit, and his team responded with probably its best game of the playoffs, writes Jared Weiss of The Athletic. Boston struck quickly, built a commanding early lead and controlled the game throughout on its way to a 115-93 victory.
“If you plan on doing this for a long time, trust me, it’ll be a lot worse than the last 72 hours, and that’s the perspective you have to have,” Mazzulla said. “This is the fun part. I didn’t get into the journey for it to be easy. It’s been dark, but in a good way.”
The Celtics set a playoff record by missing 45 three-point attempts in the series opener and were shooting 25% as a team from beyond the arc in the first two games. That changed dramatically in Game 3 as they overwhelmed the Knicks from the outside, connecting on 20-of-40 three-point shots.
Jayson Tatum, who had been badly misfiring in the first two games, made five of his nine three-point attempts on Saturday and talked about the need to be a leader when times are tough.
“You just understand what comes with being that guy,” he said. “I get a lot of praise, I get a lot of credit, I get a lot of accolades, but I’m not perfect. And there’s times where I’ve needed to play better, I’ve needed to do more, and that’s what comes with being that guy.”
There’s more on the Celtics:
- Kristaps Porzingis played 19 minutes off the bench, but he’s still experiencing side effects from a virus he contracted in March, sources tell Shams Charania of ESPN (Twitter video link). Charania states that Porzingis has been dealing with “energy zaps” and stamina “ebbs and flows” over the past two months. He began feeling better before the team’s first-round series, but went through a “crash” before Game 1 against New York.
- Payton Pritchard was 5-of-10 from three-point range on Saturday while logging 35 minutes, the most playing time he’s seen in this year’s postseason, per Khari Thompson of The Boston Globe. Mazzulla explained that he gave Pritchard an expanded role because Jrue Holiday picked up early fouls. “Our sub patterns are always flexible,” Mazzulla said. “Tonight, Jrue had three fouls and Payton was good. At times, you go with what makes the most sense. Just the flexibility of what we were able to do, but he played really well on both ends of the floor for us. There was some foul trouble there, so we were able to go to some different stuff.”
- Mazzulla’s job is probably safe regardless of the outcome of this series, Brian Robb of MassLive states in a mailbag column. However, he warns that the Celtics will likely have to sacrifice some depth this summer due to financial concerns, so it will be harder for Mazzulla to keep the team at an elite level in the future.