Today I'm going to do something a little different.
July Holiday's heroics will be read in full. Al Horford's seven three-pointers will be celebrated. Jayson Tatum is already in full bloom after a stellar 36-point, 10-rebound performance. Jaylen Brown will not be forgotten for his relentless pressure on the Indiana Pacers.
Much will be written about all of them, and Joe Mazzulla and Derrick White will likely be praised as well.
So today I want to focus on just one point, a point that has been the big question mark surrounding this Boston Celtics team all season long: the proverbial stick that has been used to poke and rile Boston up when games aren’t going their way or things get a little tough.
courage.
Apparently, a team either has it or they don't. There's no middle ground. There's no nuance. The notion of a tenacious team is spoken of in absolutes, but that's far from the truth.
If you went into this postseason believing the Celtics were “weak” or lacked “guts,” you probably felt validated when they faced a Jimmy Butler-less Miami Heat and a Donovan Mitchell-less Cleveland Cavaliers in their final two games. You were probably stunned when the Celtics came from behind to win the opening game of the Eastern Conference Finals in overtime. And you probably said just a little “I told you so” when Tyrese Haliburton was ruled out for Saturday's game.
But now that story must come to an end. The Celtics made another trip to the conference finals and won. It wasn't easy, and for the most part, it wasn't pretty.
“Some of our guys turned into Michael Jordan or whatever,” Brown said after the game. “We had some big plays in the fourth quarter. Jayson Tatum made some big plays… It was just a great, dogged win tonight.”
When a team like Indiana loses a star player, they don't falter. They rise to the occasion. The effort level goes up several notches, and other players use the moment to stake their claim to a bigger role. Andrew Nembard, I'm looking at you.
Playing a team with that kind of motivation and in a corner in their first conference finals home game in a decade comes with a certain amount of hostility and pressure.
The Pacers are playing with house money, and this run will give their young players more experience and development, so every win they can take against the Celtics is valuable.
The Celtics would know that. They've been on the trail all season. Teams chasing them have tried to stop them, but failed. And yet the Pacers came close to winning Game 3. That is, until the Celtics put the pressure on with about six minutes left in the third quarter.
The Celtics are a very experienced team. They know what it takes to win at this level. They know how to win ugly. That's when the grit comes into play. That's when the defense hunches over. That's when the offense gets even more physical and relentless.
While there's plenty of talk about Boston's elite offensive line and Mazzulla's penchant for math-based basketball, this team's identity, at least in crunch time, lies on the defensive end of the court.
So far, most of the curveballs Mazzulla has discussed to start the season have come on the defensive end, from randomly deploying zone defenses to swapping Horford for Pascal Siakam and matching up Jayson Tatum or Jaylen Brown with Myles Turner.
What's interesting is that playing top-level defense at the NBA level, especially in the playoffs, requires tenacity. Combat tested.
The same can be said on the offensive side of things, as the Celtics have been successful in using rim pressure to create open opportunities on the perimeter and in the mid-range.
Indiana won't let the Celtics slip through the cracks. Instead, Mazzulla's team fights tooth and nail every time they get the ball. They fight for position. They clash to assert their dominance and superiority as an offensive unit.
This Celtics team doesn't lack grit. They don't lack dedication. They're ready. They're looking to assert their will on both ends of the court in every game. Sometimes that leads to ugly basketball. But judging by their continued success, for the most part, they seem to be successful in fighting for dominance.
Indiana fought hard. They're clearly not afraid of the Eastern Conference powerhouses. That's a good thing. For the Celtics, it's a test that many outside the fanbase thought the team needed. But the fact that the Celtics are rising and overcoming that test is something most people won't understand. That's the essence of being the best. Usually, outside the fanbase, it's something that everyone hates.
Still, Boston's grit and will to win shines through. That's what will carry them to the NBA Finals. And Hopefully This is the Celtics team that will bring a championship back to TD Garden. This is a team that is resilient and special. Whether they win close games or by a large margin, that fact remains.
