Even without their greatest asset, the Celtics overcame the absence by leaning into their nastiness and making every effort imaginable
We can’t replace Jayson Tatum, but we can recreate him… with edge.
The Boston Celtics were without their superpower on Tuesday night. It was a bit like Superman having to climb a set of stairs after he’s been hit with kryptonite — like, yeah, it sucks that he got kryptonited and all, but it’s just… a set of stairs. Surely Superman can dig deep and put one foot in front of the other.
The Orlando Magic are perhaps scarier than a set of stairs, but not by much. Jaylen Brown still laps their roster in terms of shot-making ability, and they have nobody who could remotely hang with Kristaps Porzingis — even after cutting his face open. All that was required was a shot in the arm and five stitches, and it seems Tatum’s absence gave them what they needed.
Brown came out of the tunnel ready to destroy. He was locked-the-heck-in with his jump shot, going 5-7 from three and 7-8 from the free throw line. That’s trouble for this particular set of stai… I mean the Orlando Magic, considering inconsistent shooting is Jaylen’s only real weakness. He’s stronger than you, faster than you, and craftier than you already. If he can lock in his shooting mechanics, good luck.
So, Jaylen took over Tatum’s primary creation role, what else we got? Derrick White, want to hit a few dagger threes to close the game out for us? Sure. White wasn’t exactly lighting it up like he did in Game 1, but he came through when the Celtics needed him most. And even when his shot was off, he was averaging 3.4 disbelieving-faces at refs per minute, with Jaylen supporting with around 6.2 “are you serious!?”’s per 36 minutes. Al Horford was ready to fight someone like 11 times, and even Payton Pritchard got animated in a few high-emotional-leverage moments.
I’m not always a fan of Division 1 referee-complaining, but it helped the Celtics in this one. They had to come together as a team to get this one done, and part of supporting each other is being-completely-unable-to-believe-how-stupid-that-call-was all together. It made sure they didn’t lower their guard, and while it can also slow them down when they’re only looking for calls, the Magic never capitalized.
Once again, it’s going to be hard for Orlando to win these games with their lackluster point generation. They were 24% from three, which shows the “variance” argument for NBA randomness goes both ways. But they also don’t attempt that many threes, which makes it quite difficult to produce those 9-0 mini-runs that the Celtics are liable to hit you with in all of 30 seconds.
Ultimately, the Celtics showed they can summon multiple efforts to win lots of different ways. We already knew this, and the Celtics have given us no reason to doubt them through two games. They’ve been given two challenges, and found two solutions. Only 14 more to go.