The Boston Celtics bounced back on Saturday night, taking down the Cleveland Cavaliers 106-93. Donovan Mitchell did his best to spoil the party, but Boston managed to slow him down in the second half, as Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and Jrue Holiday carried the load on offense for the Celtics.
Here are three things you might have missed.
1. Run more offense
The Celtics’ offense was fairly lackluster on Saturday. It worked out in the end, but it was far too much mismatch-hunting and not enough ball movement and off-ball activity. Too many times the Celtics set one screen and lived with the results of the matchup they got (or failed to get).
But when they did run multiple actions, it was beautiful.
Ball movement + getting into the teeth of the defense = great offense.
2. Jayson Tatum discusses the media
After his Game 2 performance, the local and national media was all over Jayson Tatum. His playoff-long shooting slump spilled over into the contest, and it was one of his toughest scoring nights of the postseason.
Following his bounce-back in Game 3 (even though it ended in a relatively rough fourth quarter), Tatum was asked about his perspective of the media.
His answer was thoughtful, transparent, and detailed. It was everything people should hope for from a superstar.
“I do, I respect your guys’ job,” Tatum said, “I respect the guys on TV. I don’t always agree with the things that they say, but when they’re fair, and they take emotions out of it, whatever way that they’re leaning toward, and they’re fair, I respect it. I understand what the media has brought to our game — more eyes, more attention, and how everybody has benefited from that.
“So, I wouldn’t say I take it as disrespect – like I said, I don’t always agree on what they say. Maybe I feel like they’re not watching everything else that I’m doing, but that’s not my job to focus on that, right, give it any attention. My job is to be the best player I can be for our team any given night.
“Yeah, I would love to make every shot I take, and I know I can shoot better, and I will. But at this time of the season, as long as we win and we’re trending in the right direction, I know me, scoring will come. I’ve done that plenty of, plenty of times. Just trying to impact the game in other ways and just dominate, and not be defined as just a scorer.”
3. Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse deafened me
Saturday night may have caused permanent ear-drum damage. Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse was obscenely loud. And it wasn’t even the fans.
The fans were loud, but they weren’t the cause of the issue. The in-arena music and sound effects were so loud that I had to put on headphones just to stop my ears from hurting.
The overall production value was solid. The videos on the Jumbotron were cool, including some hype-up montages voiced by The Miz and Myles Garrett. It was just way too loud.
