BOSTON — The Boston Celtics returned home after a one-game road trip to Brooklyn on Saturday night, welcoming the Toronto Raptors to town. But despite the Raptors’ standing as the worst team in the Eastern Conference so far this year, this game was an ugly, drawn-out slugfest, and the Celtics didn’t make life easy on themselves.
Jakob Poeltl’s monster night led a Raptors team that made the Celtics look like a sieve inside the restricted area. Add in the Celtics’ own struggles from behind the arc, and the contest was close for most of the evening. Neither side managed to pull away until the bitter end when the Celtics just barely scraped out a 126-123 victory.
Here are three studs and three duds from the Celtics win over the Raptors on Saturday night.
ALSO: Yeah, the jerseys don’t look great…
BONUS: What a shot by Jayson Tatum.
When the third quarter kicked off, the Celtics looked rough. Poeltl was giving them the business down low, and it felt like their offense had no rhythm. But when they put out the “Jayson Tatum and the fellas” lineup, things changed.
Payton Pritchard, who was ice-cold in the first half, nailed a pair of triples to give the Celtics momentum. Then, he found Luke Kornet for a lob in transition, after which Kornet went running to half-court like Forrest Gump in celebration.
Not long after that, Jordan Walsh’s work on the boards helped Boston secure a stop, and he followed that up with an offensive rebound off his own miss and an assist to Sam Hauser. He even nailed a three of his own.
Tatum was diming up all of his teammates, creating plays with his sheer gravity alone. Boston climbed back from a seven-point deficit, and while they didn’t get too much separation of their own, the lineup of Tatum, Pritchard, Walsh, Hauser, and Kornet changed the tone of this game, if only for a brief moment in time.
The Celtics suffered a slow, painful fate in this game, as Poeltl consistently got open looks a few feet out from the basket. And he didn’t. Miss. Any. Of. Them.
It was as if the Celtics were getting bit by a mosquito over and over and over again in the exact same spot but refused to buy any bug spray.
Time and time again, the Raptors were running pick-and-rolls, leaving Poeltl wide open right in front of the rim. And time and time again, he made floaters right over the top of Boston’s heads.
He finished the night with his season-high in scoring, and the Celtics had to have been extremely frustrated with the way things played out in that area.
It was an imperfect game for Jaylen Brown, but he was always making a play for Boston. A few wild drives and questionable decisions were mixed in, but for the most part, he was at the center of the Celtics’ offensive engine.
His driving was impressive all night, as it seemed as though he could get into the paint whenever he wanted. And while sometimes this resulted in missed shots at the rim, he was creating a ton of great looks for his teammates.
Brown’s total assist number doesn’t reflect how many open shots he created, as a lot of the shots just weren’t falling. And the same can be said for Tatum.
Tatum falls under this category, too. After starting the game off with a few nifty passes, he finished the first quarter as a score-first guy. But when the third quarter game around, the lineup of him and the bench looked to him as a playmaker. And he stepped up in a big way.
A few thunderous buckets down low highlighted Neemias Queta’s evening. And though the lowlights were far less noticeable at times, they were more important to the overall outlook of the game.
Queta struggled mightily on defense in this one. Boston’s entire defense looked shaky at times, especially when the Raptors were getting downhill, but Queta, in particular, was rough.
The Portuguese big man is still having a hard time when caught on his back foot. If he’s backpedaling, the Raptors are at an immediate advantage, and the play usually ends in a trip to the free throw line or a layup at the rim.
At one point early in the third, Queta fell asleep when he could have gotten a loose offensive rebound, and Joe Mazzulla immediately signaled Luke Kornet to get up off the bench before calling a timeout.
Queta’s screening was solid, but on the defensive end, Queta was giving Toronto far too much wiggle room down low.
Al Horford joins Hauser on this list for his important shots late in this game. A big-time and-one and some threes in big moments gave Boston a much-needed boost. Horford continues to be the gift that keeps on giving, and the Celtics desperately needed him on Saturday night.
He had a relatively quiet first half, but the shots were falling. Even when a couple of his open ones didn’t go down, he still kept shooting. And it’s a good thing he did.
It was odd to see Horford on the bench to start overtime, as he was one of the Celtitcs’ clutchest players down the stretch in regulation. But he came in late in the extra period.
Having Horford it the ultimate luxury, especially at 38 years old (because he’s still playing like he’s 25).
This last dud could have been Boston’s interior defense, because it was brutal. But that was covered when discussing the Celtics’ inability to guard Poeltl and Queta’s individual struggles.
Instead, the Cetlics’ open shot-making is the dud here. They couldn’t hit anything for long stretches of this game.
Whether it was Derrick White going cold on his pull-ups or Pritchard and Hauser’s first-half disasters from behind the arc, Boston was failing to make life easy for themselves. Some tough makes by Brown kept Boston alive in overtime, but even then, they were missing some looks they’d like to have back.
Tatum and Brown both had relatively high-assist games, but they should have both racked up even more. The Celtics were just missing easy shots. And it made the game much harder on themselves.
