Being professionals: 10 takeaways from Celtics/Heat

What a bizarre game.

It’s really hard to think about those types of wins. On one hand, the Boston Celtics won a playoff game, and did so fairly convincingly at that. Despite what the TNT broadcast may have insisted, the Celtics were never truly in danger, managing their fourth-quarter margin well to get it across the finish line at a respectable 14.

On the other hand, I wouldn’t say that was nearly as convincing as Game 3, in which the Celtics came out ready to hoop like they may never hoop again in their lives. Meanwhile, the Celtics suffered two very scary injuries to Kristaps Porzingis and Jayson Tatum, though the latter wound up being totally fine. On balance, this game contained a lot more frustration, confusion, and overall sketchiness than Game 3’s comfort cruiser.

But I’m also not going to sit here and complain about a double-digit road playoff win that the Celtics led for all but 89 seconds. It wasn’t always aesthetically pleasing, but that’s just par for the course when you’re playing the Miami Heat, particularly in Miami when fans will condone all manner of heinous acts. Some of the ugliness of Game 2 returned, but that’s not necessarily Boston’s fault. And they handled it with 10 times the professionalism this time around and got the win.

I hear making lists is good for your mental health, so before we get too bogged down wondering how to feel, let’s take some things away from Game 4.

Photo by Megan Briggs/Getty Images

1. The cult of Derrick White is back and better than ever

Individual games like these prove that basketball can be a religious experience.

Derrick White is something of a mythical figure on the Celtics. He seemingly came out of nowhere, with nobody—save for maybe White’s immediate family—thinking that the Celtics had just traded Josh Richardson and a first-round pick for a guy who would be able to carry them in a road playoff game.

White has blown through every ceiling I’ve ever had for him, with my first impression of him back in 2021 being that, “Aww man, I kinda liked JRich.” I then accepted him as a solid backup point guard who kept the ball moving, and eventually as one of the NBA’s best defenders. In time, I would come to know him as my hero in Game 6 of the 2023 Eastern Conference Finals.

But now we’re doing this:

Yeah, so I’ll have to consult the Encyclopedia Britannica to see where “dunking on Bam Adebayo in the playoffs” lands on the Derrick White Glass Ceiling Spectrum, but it’s probably somewhere pretty high up there. Honestly, a good chunk of me wanted to make this entire article breakout videos of White just doing stuff, but I had to exercise restraint.

Does anyone combine decisiveness, dominance, and total calm quite like him? He’s the polar opposite of guy-who-used-to-have-his-job Dennis Schroeder, who would dribble the air out of the ball before deciding on much of anything. But the cult of DWhite waits for no one, and he certainly never waits around before getting things moving.

He’ll pull up off the dribble without question, cut to the basket with total precision, or find the open kick-out without even having to think. He always makes the right play, but even more important is how quickly he does it.

On the dominance front, White flat-out carried the Celtics in the first quarter, scoring 16 of their 34 points on four made threes. He continued his onslaught throughout the evening, finishing with 38 points and eight triples, along with one recorded block (but he actually had two).

He also took 26 shots, which is a superstar number of looks. White didn’t just play off what the game gave him, he just went out and took it for himself.

And then there’s the calmness, which is what I imagine drives opposing fans totally insane. White was destroying the Heat, but it was just a dispassionate destruction, divorced entirely from hatred or loathing or stress. The most animated we saw White was when he got whacked in the head and didn’t get a call, but stayed totally cool when he blew up an Adebayo screen and blocked a three—which might just be the most impressive thing I saw all night.

But he didn’t care. He was too busy winning.

2. Fear versus reality

All that said, there were a few clouds and watercress among the sunshine and lollipops. Miami’s lone chance came with just over five minutes left, when they ripped off a quick five points to cut the lead to 10, but the Celti—

(Producer buzzes earpiece)

It was 13? They never even cut it to 10? Huh, I could have sworn I saw Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo high five as the scoreboard read 91-81 as it went to commercial. But I’m being told it was 91-78, and that’s the closest the Heat got in the fourth quarter. Here’s the exact moment.

Perhaps the crowd tricked my memory into thinking it was closer, or perhaps the TNT broadcast’s insistence that the Heat were generating good looks and just not making them kept me thinking it was closer than it was. Perhaps I had seen the Celtics do inexplicably bad things against the Heat in the past, and I was terrified by adding a blown-27 point lead to this list.

But I’ve written extensively about fear in this series, and this should be filed away in the fake-comeback drawer rather than any real foyer into the lead. 13 is not within what I would call the minimum striking distance, and so whoever that guy sitting courtside getting amped is needs to calm himself.

Despite traumatic memories, the Celtics have actually been very good at rebuffing Heat comebacks this series. From timely threes to just getting to the free-throw line to kill a run, Boston has shown tremendous maturity in preventing more choker narratives from popping up. So in Game 5, I will refuse to worry unless Miami actually is within 10 points. Otherwise, we channel our inner DWhite and chill the heck out.

3. Payton Pritchard: Stock Exchange Intern

I’ve been critical of the “Stock Exchange” (steals + blocks = stocks; for those unaware) nickname for Jrue Holiday and Derrick White, but it works super well for this example. If those two are a barnstorming startup firm, consider Pritchard, their enterprising new intern.

I’ll be you didn’t expect my example of Pritchard’s impact would be him committing a blocking foul, but Pritchard was assigned with one of the most thankless jobs in the industry: annoying the hell out of whatever Heat role players Erik Spoelstra tries to activate. Sometimes, that means going Pit Bull mode on guys that are expecting a six foot flat pushover.

Brian Anderson on TNT nailed it, saying how Pritchard was out there specifically to prevent Patty Mills from discovering the fountain of youth. Sometimes, interns have to cut corners and make some risky plays to get ahead in the industry, and Pritchard rightly understands that the number of fouls he commits doesn’t really matter.

He can play with maximum physicality and make things as annoying and uncomfortable as possible for players like Mills, who simply have to get criminally hot to make an impact. I’m not saying Pritchard meant to foul here, but he wasn’t overly concerned about doing it, either.

After Game 2, it was clear he was tasked with keeping the Mills and Duncan Robinsons’ of the world from making an outsized impact. Because if they just make they’re normal impact, the Heat have basically no chance.

4. Can we get people in their seats?

I’m not going to call out Miami fans for not showing up, because eventually they do show up. But there is a huge chunk of the lower bowl that is in the direct center of the camera that is empty for most of the first quarter, and it happens every game. Look at all those white T-Shirts, yet unclaimed in the best section in the house!

Eventually, that section fills up, but it is inexcusable to have such a prominently displayed section so empty at the start of every game. I don’t pretend to know why this is happening, nor do I know how to fix it. I’m just here to offer some ideas.

Is this a parking issue? Are these season ticket holders who are just terminally late people? Is the Kaseya Center just laid out terribly so it’s really hard for people in that section to physically get to their seats?

I don’t know what’s going on, but figure it out for next year. Visibly empty seats in playoff games are just an offense to the game I love.

5. Taking out your anger at the refs by dunking on people

I’m a big proponent of gauging a team’s desire to win by how much they try to dunk on people. We already saw White’s contribution, but check out Exhibits B and C:

This play is hilarious, because watch Adebayo just declare he wants absolutely none of what Jaylen Brown is selling. He just got dunked on by White on the previous play, so he’s like, “Oh guys, don’t worry, I’ll close out on Tatum in the corner…” instead of getting baptized twice in a row.

If you just watch the highlights, you’d think that everything was dandy in the second half. But the Celtics were apoplectic for much of the second half about the lack of foul calls since they felt the Heat were trying to muck up the game since they couldn’t hang for real. White got fouled on both his dunks with no calls and Mazzulla and the bench were starting to lose it as well. So Jaylen decided to settle the matter by sucking the air out of the building. Now for Exhibit C:

This play is like Celtics-Heat fan fiction. Tatum had a frustrating night, and felt the refs weren’t treating him fairly. Meanwhile, fans rightly have a complex relationship with Caleb Martin, who destroyed them last season and dangerously upended Tatum in Game 1. But Tatum is showing that we’re always empowered to make our own lives better, and the very next shot on the TNT broadcast showed Tatum grinning while getting set on defense.

6. Just winning or sending a message?

I’ve written extensively about these playoffs as a revenge tour and about exorcising some demons from years past, chief among them the Miami Heat. Game 3 was definitely about sending a message, with the Celtics cooking something spicy on the defensive end and making sure the Heat never forgot how it tasted.

But Game 4 was kind of just… a win. There wasn’t nearly the same psycho-defensive energy, nor was there a feeling that the Celtics wanted to blow the Heat out of their own building. They went up big and started managing the game as professionals. They didn’t overexert themselves down the stretch, which probably led to my unfounded worries that we might blow it.

The Celtics have the ability to win every game with extreme prejudice, turning this series into something personal rather than simply professional. About 30 percent of me wants them to do that, but then again, why blow things out of proportion?

The greatest warriors fight well and leave others—like myself—to do the boasting for them. And should the Celtics close this one out like a group of stately businessmen, I’ll brag to Fort Lauderdale and back on their behalf.

7. Porzingis’ injury

I don’t speculate about injuries, but I did want to acknowledge the potential importance of Kristaps Porzingis going down with what looked like a non-contact injury and share what we know so far. Because it’s definitely a major takeaway from the win.

On-site testing thankfully showed it was unlikely to be an Achilles injury, which would have been the absolute worst-case scenario. Porzingis will have imaging done today, but he was ruled out with “calf tightness,” which could suggest a wide range of outcomes, on which I won’t worry about further until we have more information. Porzingis himself tweeted about it in an effort to reassure fans.

Should Porzingis miss extended time, the Celtics playoff run would certainly get more complex. But those are questions for another day, and we’ll keep you posted here with any updates. Check back this afternoon for more information.

8. Rebounding: the hidden advantage

The numbers won’t show it too strongly, but the Celtics are managing their defensive boards like big time… defensive board managers. I couldn’t think of a good simile for that one.

Last year, Miami rightly realized that the great equalizer in a talent mismatch is offensive rebounding. Giving your team another shot at a failed possession is the basketball equivalent of free money, and limiting charitable donations to your opponent is a major key to victory.

Instead of painting some statistical picture of rebounding success—shocker: the Celtics won the rebounding battle in all three of their wins and lost it in their single loss—I want to doll out some credit for the tremendous effort given by Tatum, Holiday, and Al Horford.

Holiday has always been an excellent rebounding guard, and Horford has been going rebound monster mode in the playoffs for his whole career. Nobody understands how important these games are like he does, as the only Celtic who truly understands that time is a limited resource

But Tatum’s rebounding is his hidden advantage over many of his superstar peers. He’s ginormous, but also has hands like a tight end. Every rebound is a deep shot downfield, and if he can get his hands on it, chances are he’s coming down with it. He doesn’t take rebounding lackadaisically either, always locking in on the ball and using his size to take up space.

Rebounding is like eating your vegetables. It might be boring for some people, but if you can find a recipe you like—maybe some oil and garlic sauteed broccoli—you won’t believe the health benefits

9. Adebayo-Tatum flagrant “debate”

I’m sure you’ve all seen the video from 47 angles by now, but here it is in case you haven’t:

Tatum rolls his ankle on Adebayo’s foot after the latter recklessly closed out after the whistle, as players generally try to prevent their opponents from getting free warm up shots after a dead ball. But what Adebayo did wasn’t just the Kevin Garnett jump-up-and-block-the-practice-shot. It was actually dangerous.

He was called for a Flagrant 1, and Al Horford was assessed a technical foul for bumping into Adebayo on the way to check on Tatum, which just might have been the most worth tech in Celtics history. Tyler Herro missed the technical free throw, and to that I say ball don’t lie.

But Stan van Gundy—who you’re probably shocked I haven’t mentioned yet—had the audacity to say that this was somehow Tatum’s fault, claiming that if Tatum didn’t want that to happen he should not have taken the shot to begin with.

I have to imagine van Gundy didn’t notice Tatum writhing in pain on the floor when he said that because generally—no matter what your opinion on after-whistle shots is—you don’t blame a guy for a situation that resulted in them getting injured. I personally think Adebayo was 150 percent at fault, but that’s not even what I’m talking about.

It’s just basic human decency to show concern for someone who’s injured, and we can litigate blame in the replay center after the fact. But the fact that van Gundy essentially resorted to the “he had it coming” defense for an injury is deplorable.

10. Looking ahead

You may have noticed in takeaway four that I said Miami needed to fix their seat-filling problem “for next year” rather than for… Game 6. That was—you guessed it—intentional, as I’m manifesting the Celtics coming home and finishing this off on Wednesday night.

Shorter series’ are better for everyone. They give some more rest before Round Two and could potentially be important for Porzingis’ health should he need to miss time. But beyond that, shorter series’ are just physically safer.

I’m not insinuating that Miami is trying to injure Celtics players, as all these guys have a player camaraderie and generally good morals that prevent that sort of behavior from all but a few bad actors. But I am saying that frustration leads to lashing out, oftentimes with no real ill intentions, and puts others at risk.

When Martin upended Tatum in Game 1, it was a dirty play. That doesn’t mean he meant to hurt Tatum, but merely that he was acting with a kind of reckless abandon born of frustration and annoyance with how the game was playing out. The same goes for Adebayo last night. That was dirty, but neither guy meant to hurt anyone.

All I’m saying is that stuff compounds as series’ prolong. If you play against someone for long enough with high enough stakes, you can really get sick of them after a while. I worry that someone will lash out and someone will get hurt because of it, so let’s just get this thing done.