IRVING, HORFORD PUT CELTS PAST PACERS
CELTICS 108 PACERS 98 Open talk keys C’s big rally
INDIANAPOLIS — You could say the most valuable moments in the Celtics’ 108-98 victory over the Pacers last night came when Al Horford became an offensive force. Or when Kyrie Irving and Terry Rozier were scoring on one of their twisting drives. Or when Marcus Smart broke out with a 7-for-8 night.
But to hear the Celts tell it, the key that opened the door to a second straight win and a best-in-league 18-3 record came during a timeout with 8:18 left in the third quarter. The Bostonians were down by eight and had mindlessly turned the ball over on three of their last four possessions.
Aron Baynes got a defensive rebound, and Brad Stevens got a TO before his lads could give the rock away again. But the coach didn’t have to do all of the talking in the break.
“We had a little timeout in the third quarter when we were going through adversity and everybody was getting on one another,” said Rozier. “But sometimes that’s good. We never take it too far. We’ve all just got to hear what one another’s got to say. We just said, ‘That’s it. We’ve got to get back to playing Celtics basketball. We’ve got to play with an edge.’
“And we came out of that timeout and you knew right there that that talk that we had was for real. We got back to playing our game. Everybody was going back and forth — Kyrie, Smart, Al, myself, coaches. It was a huddle that we needed.”
What followed was a Jayson Tatum trey and a 1-for-2 effort from the free throw line. Smart converted a Pacers turnover into a fast break. After Thaddeus Young made it 62-57, the Celts made another push.
Daniel Theis went inside for a three-point play, and Rozier hit a 3 from out past the top of the key to give the Celtics their first lead of the night 31 minutes and six seconds after tipoff. The Pacers went back up by three, but then the Green floodgates opened.
Horford hit a trey before making two free throws and scoring inside on consecutive possessions. Rozier drove for another hoop, and Tatum stuck a 3 for a 12-0 run and a 75-66 advantage.
Horford’s dozen in the third led the way to an 8270 edge entering the fourth. The C’s made 14-of-18 from the floor — a blistering 77.8 percent. They were even hotter from outside the arc, nailing 4-of-5.
The spread grew as wide as 15 two minutes into the last frame.
It was a far cry from the first quarter when the Pacers, missing leading scorer Victor Oladipo, shot 70.6 percent and took a 32-27 lead — and when they went ahead by as many as 13 in the second period and looked to be on their way to a sixth straight win.
“I thought we were kind of moving in mud there for two and a half quarters,” said Stevens. “We started off the second half a little bit better, but then we really started playing about the six-minute mark of the third. Some shots went our way, which was good.
“So we were fortunate to pull it out, because we weren’t great the first two and a half quarters. But to our guys’ credit, they kind of stuck with it and pulled together. When we were down eight in the middle of the third, it looked like we got even more locked in on what we needed to do.”
Irving went on to a 25-point night, Horford had 21 and Rozier added 17 off the bench in a collective effort to make up for the absences of Jaylen Brown and Marcus Morris.
And clearly the Celts got their game together when they got their heads together in the aforementioned timeout.
“It’s fun,” said Irving. “It’s all part of the game. It’s interesting to see how people respond from those type of situations.
“When you have a developing group like we have, we’re all getting to know one another and we’re all able to say things that strictly apply to the game. It’s not anything personal, but we understand that things need to be done in order for us to be better as a team. When we move forward from it, and then we come out and respond as a team and we make them call time out, then we’re making strides in the right direction.
“You’ve just got to be happy that you go through things like that, because we’ve got a lot more things to go through as a team. That just makes the game even more beautiful, those little things right there. You’ve got to take advantage of those moments, and I think we did.”
But, Irving acknowledged, it doesn’t always work that way.
“It depends on the team, honestly,” he said. “We’ve all seen a huddle go completely south. I’ve been a part of them, and I’ve been a part of the way where we come out and we starting hitting first and we’re diving on loose balls, and we understand that in order to make our mark as a team collectively, we’ve all got to be on the same page. It’s all part of the game.”