PHILADELPHIA — A few feet behind my press row seat, a Philadelphia 76ers fan donning a vintage Allen Iverson jersey turned to his friend.
“This time, we’re going to pull it off.”
The score was 85-84 in favor of the Celtics with just under 9 minutes to play in Game 3, but inside Xfinity Mobile Arena, it felt like the tides were turning after Tyrese Maxey hit another three-pointer — his second consecutive, unanswered jumper, which evoked shades of his big fourth quarter in the 76ers’ Game 2 victory.
The Celtics called a timeout, and for a moment, as 76ers fans rejoiced, it felt like time stood still.
It’s in those moments that, as a writer, the story typically begins to unfold in my head.
Teams that win Game 3 end up winning around 80% of NBA playoff series.
Philadelphia looks really, really confident.
And finally, the most overarching thought:
Was this really how such a special Celtics season was going to end?
But, although I had already visualized a 76ers win, Maxey never scored again. The Celtics’ championship pedigree and undying belief in one another powered them to their most crucial victory of the year.
“I liked the mindset that we had, the competitiveness, the togetherness,” said Joe Mazzulla after the 108-100 win. “I thought there was great communication, great body language, great togetherness – just things that can help you get through stuff.”
Jaylen Brown checked into the game with 8 minutes to play
Brown, like most of the Celtics’ top performers, was in the midst of a night that came with plenty of highs and plenty of lows when he came back into the game to close out the fourth quarter. He had already turned the ball over 5 times — two of which came on offensive fouls.
But, with the season seemingly on the line, he delivered.
It started with a defensive play; he stole the ball from Maxey to find a streaking Derrick White, who laid it in to give the Celtics a 3-point lead with 7 minutes to spare.
Then he took over offensively; from the 6:10 mark in the fourth quarter to the 2:39 mark, Brown was the only Celtic to make a basket for Boston.
“This was like a Game 7 for us,” he said at the podium, after a 25-point, 7-rebounds, 4-assist, 3-block performance.
I kept going back to the four minutes in the fourth quarter in which Brown put the offense on his back and scored eight consecutive points, keeping the Celtics alive amid the many things that went wrong (17 turnovers, a Neemias Queta foul trouble, the list goes on).
During that whole time, I couldn’t help but think about all the discourse that has long surrounded Brown’s career: his on-off numbers, the advanced analytics, being pigeonholed as an NBA Robin, and all the inevitable noise that comes with being a star player on one of the NBA’s most storied franchises.
You could put away the spreadsheet; when it mattered most, Brown got bucket after bucket with his team’s season on the line.
“That’s what it comes down to,” Brown said. “All your preparation comes down to those moments. Both teams are tired. Your team is maybe, offensively, in a little bit of a rut. Gotta figure out how to get a basket. Gotta figure out how to create some momentum for your team. And I feel like I did just enough to shift things in our favor.”
Then, with just over two minutes to spare in the ballgame, he passed the torch to his co-star.
Jayson Tatum, clutch-time heroics, and playing with joy
In the final 130 seconds of the basketball game, Jayson Tatum got to the free line, hit two pull-up three-pointers, and found Payton Pritchard for a huge three-pointer to beat the shot-clock buzzer.
Tatum’s biggest shot — the unequivocal dagger — came after an offensive rebound from Derrick White. White passed it out to Brown, who had the ball in his hands with Kelly Oubre Jr. defending him.
Brown generally likes that match-up (he’ll take most). But, a few feet away, he saw that Jayson Tatum had Adem Bona guarding him. That was an even better match-up.
So, Brown didn’t hesitate before passing the ball to Tatum, who quickly called for the iso. After 118 playoff games together, the correct play was instinctive.
“In those moments, I got nothing but trust for Jayson Tatum,” Brown said. “When it comes down to it, we’ve been through it.”
The final three-pointer gave the Celtics a 106-100 lead with 27 seconds to go.
And, as the ball splashed through the net, the look on Jayson Tatum’s face conveyed one expression: joy.
“I just missed being a part of moments like that, where it’s just like a back-and-forth game,” Tatum said. “We had some moments where things didn’t go our way, and then we had to fight back and get the lead. And it was just a figure-it-out type of game, and make winning plays. The rebound that D-White got, the steal that JB got, P hitting that big shot. Just as a basketball player, being on the team where everybody’s just contributing and making plays.”
Tatum is still rehabbing, he reminded us after Game 1. It hasn’t even been a year since his Achilles rupture. Still, he finished the night with 25 points, 7 assists, and 5 rebounds, scoring or assisting on all of the team’s field goals in the final two minutes. He played a whopping 42 minutes.
But, asked about other people’s expectations for his play, he smiled.
“Obviously, I’m not 100% yet and whatnot, but the expectations of what people want me to do is the last thing that has crossed my mind,” he said. “Just the amount of joy I’ve been able to find in just being back out there, and being out there with my teammates, is all I think about.”
Joy, as a matter of fact, was everywhere. It was all over Luka Garza’s face each time Nikola Vucevic hit a big three. Hugo Gonzalez practically represented it as he jumped up and down after his veterans made game-saving play after game-saving play.
It was all over Deuce Tatum’s face as he danced after his dad hit the dagger; the same dad he watched rely on crutches just months earlier.
But perhaps no one felt the joy more than Tatum.
“I just missed being a part of moments like that,” he said. “And it was just fun.”
For Joe Mazzulla, that fourth quarter stretch — which began with Brown and ended with Tatum — embodied the team’s championship experience.
But, really, it started with both stars’ even response to disappointment in Game 2.
“I trust our group,” Brown said at the TD Garden podium, pointing to the team’s growth throughout the season. “We just got to continue to have the right mentality, have each other’s back, just breathe.”
“What I’ve learned throughout my 9 years in the playoffs is just stay even-keeled throughout, right?” Tatum said. “And I think the team that sticks together and does that from an emotional standpoint will be fine.”
That unflappable demeanor, perhaps even more than their big fourth quarter, is what stood out most to their head coach.
“I think it shows up in how you handle playoff losses, how you handle a bad game, how you handle winning,” Mazzulla said. “I think the experience just kind of shows up in – they’re poised on a day-to-day basis – not getting too high, not getting too low, having a clear understanding of what’s at stake and what’s needed on a consistent basis. And I thought you saw that tonight.”
The other 2024 champions stepped up, too
It wouldn’t be fair to give all the Game 3 credit to the Jays, though the duo did score or assist on all of the Celtics’ fourth-quarter points (with the exception of two end-of-game free throws).
Derrick White has made headlines for his shooting struggles this season; in his series, he’s shooting 29.4% from the field and 20% from three.
But he secured two offensive rebounds in the final four minutes, both of which led to Celtics baskets. His second rebound is what led to the Tatum dagger three-pointer.
“We need him,” Tatum said. “I can say it 100 times. We need him. We need him. We need him. And, it’s tough as a basketball player. We’ve all been through it when you’re not hitting shots at the rate that you expect to or want to. It’s just sometimes you just don’t make them. But D-White is an unreal basketball player that still just has his imprint on the game and makes plays on both ends of the floor.”
Mazzulla said it best: “Anyone who ever doubts D-White, they don’t really care about winning.”
And, Payton Pritchard hit one of his most clutch shots as a Celtic, beating the shot clock buzzer with a deep three and talking smack all the way down the floor. That three-pointer — his fifth of the night — gave the Celtics a 5-point lead with just over a minute to play.
Mazzulla acknowledged that Pritchard hadn’t been super involved in the offense up until that point.
But, with the clock winding down, he delivered.
“We found him,” Mazzulla said, “and he made it.”
Nikola Vucevic doesn’t have the playoff experience that many of his teammates do. Still, the Celtics’ trade deadline acquisition became the team’s most oft-used post player on Friday, tallying 11 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists, and 3 blocks in 30 minutes.
And, he watched in awe as Tatum and Brown lifted the team to victory.
“Two great players, different players that have been in these situations so many times; you can just tell [when the] game is coming down to the wire, they’re just very poised,” Vucevic said. “They didn’t let the moment or physicality affect them. They knew what they wanted to do. They knew what spots they wanted to get to.”
By the time Tatum and Brown walked off the floor, Xfinity Mobile was mostly filled with Celtics fans, who cheered as they watched one of the NBA’s most successful duos walk off the parquet.
“This was a big win for us,” Brown said.
They just need 14 more.
