Symmetry
The first time the Timberwolves and Celtics danced this season, the Wolves' star – Anthony Edwards – went supernova in overtime. Some timely defense thrown in on the other team's star – Jayson Tatum – made sure the game didn't get to a buzzer beater situation in OT. The Wolves won that one in their building, 114-109. Tonight, the Celtics' star – Jayson Tatum – went supernova in overtime. Some timely defense thrown in on the other team's star – Anthony Edwards – made sure the game didn't get to a buzzer beater situation in OT. The Celtics won this one in their building, 127-120. It was an exhilarating night of basketball by the two teams in the NBA right now.
Tatum was absolutely incredible in this one. When he checked back in with 8:17 left in the game, the C's were down 91-87, and got right to work trying to bring the C's back. He put in 14 in the fourth quarter. Ironically, it was a shot that he missed that finally turned the tide. He missed a free throw that Derrick White rebounded and it turned into a go-ahead three for Jrue Holiday. Just two minutes earlier, the C's looked dead in the water, but Tatum entered Calm Mode and picked up the pieces. After Nickeil Alexander-Walker's three (dagger after dagger from him tonight) put the Wolves up seven with 2:46 left, Tatum went lay-up, step-back three, missed a 18' footer, and then hit a free throw to pull the C's within one. It was the kind of sequence that he was able to put together because of his maturity. He no longer gets sped up. Just like in Game 6 in Philly last playoffs, he knows he has time, and he gets to his spots. The stepback three over Karl Anthony-Towns (dagger after dagger from him tonight) was like a rug on valium, it was smooth.
Tatum's 45 points are going to grab the headlines, and rightfully so, but Minnesota had to single cover him most of the night because Jaylen Brown was also on one. First of all, Jaylen had a career night at the stripe. For just the 14th time in his career, and the first time this season, Jaylen got 10+ free attempts. But tonight was the first time he's ever been perfect at the line when he got 10+ free throw attempts. He went 13-for-13 at the line, which enabled him to put in 35 points on just 16 field goal attempts. That efficiency was important, because D White is in the midst of his first shooting slump of the season, and most everyone else wasn't shooting well either. Tatum shot 50% (13-for-26) from the floor, Jaylen shot 56.3% (9-for-16), and the rest of the team shot 35% (17-for-48).
That's not to say that the rest of the team was ineffective. Jrue Holiday came through on two absolutely titanic plays. First, he hit the go-ahead three in regulation, which was just an absolute killer shot. At the time he took it, he was 4-for-12 on the night, including 1-for-7 from three. The confidence needed to take and hit that kind of shot when you're shooting that poorly is awesome. And then in overtime, he and D White trapped Edwards on the sideline. Holiday picked his pocket, and then calmly came back down the other way, and found Tatum for the nail-in-the-coffin three.
The latter is the biggest difference between Holiday and Marcus Smart. Marcus was always willing to shoot when he wasn't shooting well. He was always able to make a heads up defensive play to help turn the momentum. But too often, Marcus would not finish it off with a smooth play on offense after the steal, and the squad would be right back trying to play D with the game on the line. That didn't happen tonight, because Holiday waited for Minnesota to make a mistake.
While I'm obviously glad the C's won, I remain supremely impressed with the T'Wolves. I have found myself watching a lot of their games this season, and they are just so tough. They win games they shouldn't. Towns is playing the best ball of his career, as is Edwards. Rudy Gobert is reborn, but even without him out the Wolves still fought hard and controlled the paint. Jaden McDaniels picked up his fifth foul early in the fourth, which brought Kyle Anderson back up off the bench. He quickly put in eight infuriatingly slow-motion points. They have a next-man up mentality, they force you to do what you don't want to offensively, and they're as complete a team as you'll find. The knock on them is needing a backup point guard, and they may, but they got all the shots they wanted tonight.
We'll see if coach Joe Mazzulla wants tomorrow night's game, but he wanted this one badly. The bench didn't factor much in this one, as all five starters played at least 38 minutes. We know Al Horford won't play tomorrow, but hopefully Kristaps Porzingis will, and we'll have to see who else suits up. It's a national TV game, so there will be pressure on the C's to play everyone, but I also saw Tatum grab at his right wrist twice tonight. Either way, incredible game. Between the loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder game last week and tonight's win, the C's have two of the early contenders for best game of the season.