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Celtics, Derrick White shut down Magic in second half to win Game 1
The underdog Magic made the Celtics sweat Sunday in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series. They even held a halftime lead at TD Garden. But Orlando lost steam in the second half, and Boston surged ahead, turning a competitive game into a 103-86 romp. Derrick White delivered one of the best postseason performances of his career, leading the Celtics with 30 points on 10-of-18 shooting, including 7-of-12 from 3-point range.
Payton Pritchard was a difference-maker off the bench with 19 points in 25 minutes, and Jayson Tatum turned in a 17-point, 14-rebound double-double despite shooting the ball poorly (8-for-22, 1-for-8 from three, 0-for-4 from the foul line).
Before Monday night’s Celtics game, Jaylen Brown threw his support behind Payton Pritchard in the early NBA awards conversation. Responding to an X post asking whether Pritchard should be the front-runner for Sixth Man of the Year, Brown wrote: “Easily.”
“I mean, it’s early in the season, but Payton’s been balling,” Brown said postgame. “He’s been a superstar in his role all season long. He’s always been a hard-working guy that shows up early, puts his work in, but now it’s like, you’re really starting to see the growth. I think Payton could be significant on any other team. He accepts his role and he has been fantastic for it. So anytime I’m in a game, I’m looking to get him going. Anytime he’s on the court, he’s a threat. Payton has been balling. It’s been pretty obvious.”
There’s one change he would make, however. He wants to see it turned into a true standalone tournament that is separate from the regular season. “The best way to, in my opinion, make it more impactful is to move it away from the 82-game schedule,” Mazzulla said before Boston hosted Atlanta on Tuesday night in the NBA Cup opener for both teams. “So it’s not just a regular-season game; it’s something different. You see the other tournaments around the world, they don’t count toward your domestic league. It’s its own league entirely. “So that, to me, is my only negative towards it. I like it. I think having something like that in the middle of the season is good, especially for a long year. Just that’s the difference between what we do here and what you do around the world. But it’s an opportunity for us to win something, an opportunity to go after something, so we’re kind of looking at it from that perspective.”
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Celtics remain undefeated behind Jayson Tatum's 37-point game
Detroit, of all teams, gave Boston the first true test of its nascent title defense, pushing the reigning champs to the brink at Little Caesars Arena. The Celtics squandered a 23-point lead and trailed with less than three minutes remaining before rallying to win 124-118 and remain undefeated on the young season. Jayson Tatum paced Boston with 37 points on 12-for-26 shooting, including 6-for-13 from 3-point range.
Co-star Jaylen Brown struggled to find his shot (6-for-24) but grabbed five fourth-quarter rebounds and was 9-for-10 from the free-throw line, with the final two of his 22 points icing the game in the final minute.
Lee, Joe Mazzulla’s top assistant this season, will not join the Hornets until after Boston’s playoff run concludes. The Celtics owned a 1-0 lead over the Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference semifinals heading into Thursday’s Game 2. In his pregame news conference, Mazzulla called Lee’s hiring “long overdue,” and offered some blunt advice to his departing lieutenant. “Everybody hates you (when you’re a head coach),” Mazzulla deadpanned. “Get used to it. You’re no longer the nice, shiny toy.”
“I can’t have the expectation of perfection that we’re always going to play well,” Mazzulla told reporters Sunday night in Memphis. “It’s not reality. There are 82 of these things. … “It’s easy to lump the group of guys that we have coming back as like, they’ve been around, but every team needs to learn different things and go through different stuff, and it’s easy to say you want to be a certain type of team, and then it just gets harder and harder to live that way. And so, the standard is very high for us. The guys in the locker room set a high standard for themselves, and we’re not always going to meet it. So I understand why a game is going to go like this. It’s not going to be the only time, but I don’t have to be happy about it.”
The city council is looking to see how it can create a full-court press around the Celtics’ reported bid to host the 2026 NBA All-Star Game. City Councilor Brian Worrell plans to introduce a hearing order to see how the city itself can get ready to make an assist, checking to see how it can “address improvements needed to bolster the City’s application standing and ensure preparations are done in an equitable manner,” per the order.
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Per Worrell’s order, last year’s NBA All-Star Game in Cleveland attracted $141.4 million in direct spending and generated $248.9 million in total economic impact. Worrell said this is cash the downtown still recovering from the pandemic could well use. The councilor from Mattapan added that he’d like to see ways to get tourists out into the rest of the city, and figure out how to share the wealth with neighborhood businesses.
Among the tributes and well-wishes was a recollection from Danny Ainge, who recounted his surprise upon spotting the newest member of his media relations team on a motorcycle, cruising down a street in Rome during the Celtics’ 2008 training camp. “Holy cow, you’re a public relations vice president and you’re riding a motorcycle?” Kevin Garnett, in a typically long, adjective-laced ramble, told her, “I just want to remind you to keep living, and keep having these experiences, and keep doing whatever you do, and more importantly keep fighting.”
Her cancer hasn’t returned since surgery. That’s a starting point. “I actually feel really good,” she said this week. “I did start my chemo again this week, so I feel a little nauseous, a little chemo-brained, but through the process I’ve felt really good. I take it one day at a time. Movement and working out definitely helps. It is a game-changer when you work out and exercise.
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