Boston started the season with back-to-back blow outs, and mid-way through the first half it looked likely to be the same in this one. The Celtics were red hot from beyond the arc and Jayson Tatum continued to impress. However, some stagnant offense and subpar defence led to a huge Pistons comeback, and they led with under five minutes to play in the fourth quarter. Thankfully a couple of huge plays down the stretch by Jrue Holiday meant that Boston held on, and they claimed the win 124-118.
The opening quarter belonged to Jayson Tatum, who has been playing out of his mind to begin the season. He had seventeen points, including five 3s and did a superb job exploiting miss matches against the Detroit big men. Payton Pritchard also caught fire off the bench with a 13-point streak to end the quarter, helping to push the Celtics to a 11-point lead at the end of the period.
It was business as usual to begin the second, as Boston continued to work the ball around the perimeter and get open shots. That all changed at the five-minute mark of the quarter, their shots stopped falling and the defence failed to create any real resistance, all of a sudden, the Celtics 23-point lead was back down to eleven.
Something the Celtics are going to have to learn to live without – at least until December – is Kristaps Porzingis’ rim protection, so far Horford and Tillman have not been able to replicate Porzingis’ production. It was very apparent in this one, as Detroit scored double the amount of points in the paint as Boston which was a huge factor in their comeback in this game. Boston has a defensive rating of 113.1 through their opening three matches (13th in the NBA) which is significantly worse than their 3rd ranked defence last season. It is only early in the season, but Boston will need to tighten up defensively to have any chance of retaining their title.
Entering the fourth Boston led by just a single point, which quickly turned into a 4-point lead for Detroit. With four minutes remaining the game looked lost for the Celtics, but Jrue Holiday was the hero once again. After struggling for the majority of the game Holiday connected on a corner three before stealing the ball off of Cade Cunningham and going up the other end to make another three. A couple of clutch Jayson Tatum possessions later and the Celtics escaped with a 124-118 victory.
After the game Jayson Tatum spoke on his teams first taste of adversity this season via NBCSportsBoston: “we found a way to win it is not always going to be pretty… we understand who we and we are going to get everybody’s best shot”. The Celtics now head home to the TD Garden to face their conference rivals, the Milwaukee Bucks, on Monday night.
By Will C
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