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The Celtics needed a huge rally and some huge shots down the stretch, but they defeated the Warriors 121-118 in overtime on Thursday at TD Garden in a rematch of the 2022 NBA Finals.
Here are the takeaways.
1. Several Celtics denied that Thursday meant more than any other regular-season game. Joe Mazzulla even seemed a little indignant on Jayson Tatum’s behalf when a reporter had the temerity to suggest that beating Andrew Wiggins might mean something to Tatum, given how well Wiggins defended the Celtics’ star in the Finals.
“Every game is important for him, the way he’s approached his craft, his season,” Mazzulla said. “And so to say that, that kind of diminishes his mindset and his work ethic.”
Tatum was careful to downplay the matchup too.
“I think the first time we played them in San Francisco, I felt like we bought into that rematch of the Finals, ABC game, first time back since we lost,” Tatum said. “Everybody wanted to win so bad, and I think that was the first time all season that we played out of character, that we played tense. And we just kind of talked about it today. Like, the fact of the matter is we lost. We lost the championship. No one win can bring that back. We can’t go back and change that.
“So we didn’t look at this as a rematch of the Finals. It’s just one game against a great team with great players and obviously a great coach. But it was just one game.”
Good sentiments and a great mindset, to be sure, but Tatum and Mazzulla will have to pardon us if we don’t entirely buy it. Not after watching Tatum brick his way to a 5-for-18 start through three quarters. Not after Jaylen Brown went 1-for-9 over that same stretch. Not after Tatum recorded seven jaw-clenching turnovers, including three crucial ones in the fourth quarter that nearly cost the Celtics the game.
And certainly not when you see Tatum emerge from his struggles to score 13 points in the fourth quarter and overtime to finish with 34 points, 19 rebounds and six assists — an MVP-type performance if we’ve ever seen one. Not when you see Brown light the TD Garden on fire by shaking off his own struggles with the game-tying 3-pointer that sent the game into overtime.
“It’s a big game,” Al Horford said. “I wanted to come out here and I wanted to win. I wanted to win really bad, absolutely. It’s a regular season game, it’s just one game, it’s over but it’s an important game.”
Because they beat you in the Finals?
“Obviously, yeah,” Horford said.
The Celtics might not face the Warriors again in the postseason — believe it or not, this Warriors team that gives the Celtics fits is ninth in the Western Conference at 22-23.
