C’s storm back over Nuggets
Down 18, Celtics flip script with 38-7 run
Grant Williams called it “being a little more like ourselves,” and if so, the Celtics haven’t seen themselves for quite some time.
Despite a triple-double from Nuggets center Nikola Jokic, everyone’s favorite NBA MVP candidate du jour, the Celtics turned out one of their finest defensive performances of the season in a 105-87 win over Denver, which was without star guard Jamal Murray.
They came back from an 18-point deficit in this one, outscoring the Nuggets 31-8 in the fourth, and putting the game away with a 38-7 burst that stretched back to the last 3:15 of the third.
“That was big,” said Jayson Tatum. “We could have let it get away from us. Obviously they were up big, but that group to end the third and kind of start the fourth kick-started that run. And then when we subbed in, we kind of carried it on from there.”
Tatum’s 53-point performance against Minnesota wasn’t even 48 hours old, and clearly the Celtics star was in the mood for more.
After three quarters of open misses by everyone in green and, in line with a recent trend, enough defensive intensity, Tatum took over down the stretch on the way to 28 points and 10 rebounds.
It was, for Tatum, a reminder of how business was done in past seasons.
“I think since I’ve been on the Celtics, especially even this year, we always give ourselves a chance,” he said. “We kind of turned it up even more in that third quarter. I feel like sometimes we have to rely on the fourth quarter, whether we’re down 15 or whatever, and then you damn near gotta be perfect at the end and it doesn’t always go our way.
So we kind of picked it up early in the third and gave ourselves a longer chance and just kind of ran with it.
“It’s certainly going in the right direction. We still have some things to improve on. But hopefully we can just continue to build off this.”
The Celtics ran a cast of switching defenders at Jokic — everyone from Grant Williams to Marcus Smart — and despite a 17-point, 11assist, 10-rebound performance from the Nuggets center, lived to tell about it.
It was not only the Celtics’ third straight win, but a notable start to one of their tougher road trips of the season, with games left in Portland and Los Angeles against the Lakers.
“It doesn’t matter how many you’ve lost in a row, won in a row, whatever,” said Brad Stevens. ”We’re playing the Portland Trail Blazers, two of the best guards in the league, terrific skill around those guys, they changed their team from in the past where, now they’ve got four shooters around the perimeter on every possession and two good bigs that can score the ball on you. They are a heck of a team. That game won’t have anything to do with what we’ve done in the past, we have to prepare to play it well. But this trip is a chance to compete against good teams on a tough stretch and hopefully we can respond like we did tonight.”
It’s been said before, but at least they now have a blueprint, a recipe for how to handle themselves in the stretch run.
Jokic had just scored his 14th point of the third quarter off an in-traffic put-back for a 76-62 lead, but the Celtics outscored the Nuggets, 12-3 over the last 3:46 of the third, with Kemba Walker blocking Will Barton and pushing the ball for a quarter-ending three-point play.
The Celtics accelerated from there. The run hit 36-7, for a 98-85 Celtics lead, on Tatum’s dunk with 3:12 left, and when, just over a minute later, Rob Williams blocked Facundo Campazzo and converted the play with a dunk down the other end, the bulldozing comeback was complete.
“Kemba made a play at the end of the quarter that was a big energy play, and it just kind of took off from there,” Stevens said. “We needed something to get us going, and we were close to going the other way there when it was 76-62. But we stayed the course. The defense, as far as the individuals and their effort and physicality and toughness, coupled with that spurt that (Jaylen Brown) and Kemba put on at the end of the third, and I left them in. I just felt that group needed to play longer. That was a lot of Kemba and JB in altitude. So be it.”