MIAMI — With just a few seconds to spare in the second quarter of Wednesday’s Celtics-Heat game, Derrick White found Jaylen Brown for an alley-oop.
Brown finished the layup — marking his 10th basket of the first half — and the Celtics bench rejoiced.
But, there was one problem: 1.5 seconds remained on the clock after the ball sank through the net. Heat forward Jaime Jaquez Jr. was well aware of the situation and immediately fired a perfect pass down the court to Pelle Larrson, who had already sprinted down the court, seemingly poised for a wide-open layup.
But White had another idea.
For 1.5 seconds, he looked the fastest man on the planet. White somehow caught up with Larrson, altered his shot, and ultimately forced a miss.
Sitting on press row, I gasped at the speed with which he got from one end of the court to the other.
On the court, White’s teammates expressed the same disbelief.
“That was impressive to make the play,” Brown said. ”I look up, and I’m thinking that Larson has a wide open layup, and then D-White comes flying out of nowhere. That’s impressive. That’s like First Team All-Defense type stuff. Those are Defensive Player of the Year-type plays.”
“It was a great play,” Joe Mazzulla echoed.
After the game, White sat at his locker room chatting with Baylor Scheierman. He wasn’t one of the four players selected to speak to the media after the win, and was surprised when I approached him.
“You’re the subject of my postgame story,” I announced.
He looked at me, a tad surprised
Jaylen Brown had just tallied one of his best offensive performances of the season, erupting for 43 points on 17-29 shooting, and marking his 7th game of 40+ points of the year.
Jayson Tatum posted a 25-point, 18-rebound, 11-assist triple-double, his first triple-double since returning from his Achilles injury.
Sam Hauser finished with 23 points on 9-11 shooting, his second-highest scoring game of the season.
And, Neemias Queta finished with 16 points, 10 rebounds, 3 assists, and 3 blocks.
White’s confused glance seemed to indicate: Why me?
I explained to him that from an onlooker’s perspective, his play to close out the first half didn’t make any sense. I simply needed to understand it.
“I don’t even know,” he said, laughing. “I looked up, and I saw Pelles was open, and I just ran back as fast as I possibly could.”
I asked Derrick if he thought it was the fastest he’d sprinted all season.
“It might be,” he said, after pondering the question for a few seconds. “It was definitely the longest I’ve sprinted for.”
Scheierman, sitting at the adjacent locker, chimed in.
“He’s a pro, man,” Scheierman told me. “We call that ethical hoops university.”
As the halftime buzzer sounded, White’s teammates met him at center court, congratulating him for his effort. Luka Garza fervently slapped him across the chest.
White admitted it felt good to create such an energizing moment, but, as per usual, didn’t give himself too much credit.
“Inspiring basketball — that’s what we call it when guys make plays like that with the extra effort over and over again,” Neemias Queta said, praising the Celtics guard for putting his body on the line for the play.
White only had 4 points at the half — and 6 in the entirety of the ball game — but it didn’t matter.
“That set the tone for the second half,” Queta said.
The play won’t show up on the stat sheet: though White significantly altered Larrson’s layup attempt, it didn’t count as a block or a steal.
The two points his hustle saved also ultimately didn’t come into play; the Celtics won the ball game by 18 points and led by as many as 27.
Still, the moment perfectly captured why White is one of the most impactful players in basketball, according to almost every advanced metric. (White has the 7th-highest LEBRON rating in the league, trailing only legitimate MVP candidates).
I asked Derrick if that’d be the play he thinks would best represent his career at a Hall of Fame nomination ceremony.
He chuckled.
“I told JT — that’ll go in my Hall of Very Good nomination.”
Why Derrick White’s play epitomized Celtics basketball
For Joe Mazzulla, the moment stuck out because it came in a game in which he only attempted 4 shots.
Regardless of offensive production or opportunity, White’s effort, intensity, and attention to detail never wavered.
That’s been the hallmark characteristic of his basketball career.
Mazzulla similarly praised the contributions of players like Payton Pritchard, Baylor Scheierman, Luka Garza, and Jordan Walsh — all guys who committed to doing the little things in the Celtics’ win, given that Tatum, Brown, and Hauser had the hot hand.
“When you have a team, you have to understand, there are nights where the other guys have it,” Mazzulla said, pointing to Brown and Tatum’s big-time offensive performances. “Tonight, those guys had it going. And you have a group of guys that commit to the other stuff; they commit to transition defense, they commit to rebounding, they commit to defense. And so those [other] guys did that tonight.”
Most nights, White will attempt far more than 4 shots — the Celtics guard averages 16.8 points per game, after all.
But on this particular Wednesday night, the game didn’t call for him to put the ball in the basket.
He just needed to sprint back as fast as he possibly could.
“Every game will have its own story,” Brown said. “This game, offensively, I got off to a great start, but every game has its own story. So, just got to be ready to play basketball and be versatile. Be ready for any scenario. Our team is built on that versatility.”
It’s human nature for players to lose focus, lose some momentum when they’re not as involved in the offense. But, for the Celtics to play their best basketball — and ultimately contend for a title — those kinds of lapses need to happen as little as possible.
“That’s just being a team,” Mazzulla said.
It’s those kinds of plays that have propelled the Celtics to the most improbable 51-win season — and counting.
