Celtics Answer Kristaps Porziņģis’ Call and Avenge Raptors Loss vs. Magic
BOSTON — Kristaps Porziņģis sat perplexed by a Celtics effort in Toronto missing energy and charisma.
Jrue Holiday shook the loss and recent stretch off two days later, pleased Boston could play again in short order and wondering why they’ve had trouble with the starting lineup and effort. He put it up to January. It occurs.
Joe Mazzulla, who confessed Boston didn’t play well at either end in the defeat, returned to the stage two days relishing the position they began the night in.
He wouldn’t instruct each player how to respond, but started Friday’s back-to-back convinced that the squad would turn it around after a 7-7 streak.
He showed some haste by playing Porziņģis and Al Horford on the first of the two evenings.
“You don’t rush it. To me, this is the fun part,” he said. “(It’s) why you enter the arena and why you do what you do, and anyone who’s not in the arena, you don’t have skin in the game, it really doesn’t matter … this is why you go for something that’s incredibly hard to execute, is for the challenge of it.
To have an expectation of it being anything other than tough is the wrong approach to attack.”
Mazzulla also referenced to his voice behind the scenes, stating it’s on everyone to react — and they did with a complete team effort victory against the struggling Magic, 121-94. Eight Celtics hit threes and five converted multiple.
And as awful as Orlando’s injury list appeared going in, the Magic dealt an ugly setback to Boston in Florida last month with key players sidelined.
The Celtics’ effort appeared more serious from the open possession, guarding into Magic player’s bodies.
Holiday got the ball flowing, finding Porziņģis inside for a pair of baskets while Jaylen Brown made an additional pass from the corner with time to shoot to get Derrick White going after the latter missed his initial layup effort.
Several plays later, White stopped-and-started to finish in the post – appearing closer to himself in the triumph.
“Everything was so smooth last year,” Horford remarked after. “This year, we’re having some downs…folks are scared about it…it’s one of those things where we simply dig in on the job, things that we do and I feel like all of this will make our team stronger….every year you start again. You have to learn how to win…work things out.
The regular season is sort of for that … and when I say learn how to win, you have to play various methods at different times. The game continues to shift and opponents are playing us different.
There’s a lot of factors…now that we’re finally healthy…KP out there and we’re all getting reps together…the more and more that occurs, the better we’re going be.”
The Magic didn’t relent early, hammering out offensive rebounds, finding the wide space against Boston’s defense and sprinting to make up for Franz Wagner, Moe Wagner, Goga Bitadze, Jalen Suggs and Gary Harris’ absences. Paolo Banchero played under a minutes limit.
The Celtics opened 8-for-10 and nailed their first three from deep, Porzingis made all four of his shots in the second quarter, plus a pair of free throws as the starters gave Boston a rare 19-13 cushion and ended +15.
The bench maintained the line until a poorly handled possession went the opposite way for an uncontested Tristan da Silva give-and-go dunk.
Mazzulla seemed upset, but only quickly addressed the players in the huddle before the Celtics delivered threes for Sam Hauser and Horford. Boston nailed its first five tries from three and led 35-28 entering the second.
Tatum made a couple of driving layups and slipped around Trevelyn Queen into a reversal to increase Boston’s lead to double-digits.
He beat Cole Anthony back door for a and-one slam to reach 17 points with just three free throw attempts and two of his first 10 shots coming from three.
Defensively, the Celtics survived with Magic mid-rangers, but Banchero’s consistent threat from there led to additional defensive breakdowns, such Tatum slipping over to double Banchero off Anthony and Brown rotating over too late, giving up a three to Banchero.
Orlando hit 16-for-26 from two in the first half, putting them within 66-54 at intermission even with the Celtics blazing at over 60% from the field and from three.
The game, at the very least, trended toward a considerably nicer vibe than Wednesday, when Porziņģis called out Boston’s effort.
“It was an uncharacteristically bad game for us,” he added on Friday, looking back at his words. “No energy. At one point I was thinking ‘man, we’re really gonna lose?’ It was one of those performances.
We’ve seldom had them, but I felt like that one was unacceptable… we may miss shots, (etc.), but we have to have more individuality.
That’s what I felt, but today we looked like a totally different animal.”
Porzingis had nine and Tatum scored the remainder of Boston’s first 14 points in the third quarter, jumping up by 19 points on a 14-7 run, improving to 14-of-21 over the last two games and leaving Friday with just 23 minutes.
He teased a possible back-to-back appearance on Friday, saying he thinks he’ll play, but he raced for a breakthrough dunk in transition, missing it as Wendell Carter Jr. fouled him, a play that left Porzingis holding the back of his left leg, but able to continue. Later, he wore an ice pack on his right ankle while performing a radio interview.
Porzingis picked up a fourth foul four plays later, catching Banchero in the eye and left Banchero on the ground for an entire timeout before he split a pair of free throws and departed the game.
Orlando went scoreless on five of their next eight possessions as Brown increased the Celtics’ advantage to 22 with 13 consecutive points in a considerably more motivated performance than he exhibited on Wednesday in Toronto.
Banchero returned, but the Magic’s offense never got back on its feet, ending 41.5% from the field and 15.6% from three.
The Celtics didn’t entirely right the ship on Friday. With a victory, they at least returned to approximating themselves – shooting 45.9% from three.
“Our ball pressure was good tonight,” Mazzulla remarked.
“I thought our shift activity was good … we weren’t doing a fantastic job guarding without fouling, but we were engaged and we were aggressive … answering the call physically on both sides of the floor helped us get off to a strong start and then I believe we were able to hit shots and build off that.”
Neemias Queta returned to the rotation for the first time since Jan. 3 against Houston. He scored seven points on 3-of-3 shooting in 11 minutes, ending +1.
Baylor Scheierman appeared for four minutes after the Celtics emptied their bench for the final four minutes. He missed his lone effort from three and gained three rebounds.
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