March 14, 2025
Jayson Tatum led the Celtics in scoring, and Derrick White came alive late as the Celtics pulled away in the fourth quarter for a 103-91 win over the Heat, bouncing back from Wednesday’s loss.
Here are the takeaways.
There will be nights when Jayson Tatum is an untouchable superstar – an MVP candidate who shows up on the biggest stage and puts up huge numbers that propel the Celtics to a clutch win.
And then there will be nights like Friday, when – on the front end of a back-to-back on a March night in Miami – he scores 28 relatively inefficient points and breaks even on assists and turnovers but manages a +10 in the box score as the Celtics win by 12.
The former, of course, leads to the type of breathless coverage about him that he has earned (and which we have afforded him often in this space). The latter is … also fine.
Tatum wasn’t particularly impressive on Friday. He made a pair of triples in the first quarter as the Celtics raced out to a big lead, but he cooled off and made one in each of the final three quarters, including the closing basket in the fourth. His five turnovers included four live-ball turnovers, and three in a sloppy three-minute stretch at the start of the second half when the Heat pulled ahead by as many as five (their biggest lead of the night). The Heat forced him into a lot of difficult shots, and several of his misses came as the shot clock wound down after possessions when the Celtics’ offense – of which he is the lynchpin – broke down, forcing Tatum to try to create something out of nothing.
And yet, he led his team in scoring, made 41.7 percent of his triples (5-for-12) and went 7-for-7 from the free-throw line.
For a Celtics team that is cruising its way toward the second seed and a potentially favorable path back to the Eastern Conference finals, that kind of performance on the front end of a back-to-back on a March night in Miami is plenty.
For three quarters, Derrick White simply could not find the range.
After making two of his first three shots, White missed his next seven, spanning the second and third quarters before he finally dropped in a floater with 6:28 left in the third.
Then in the fourth quarter – as White tends to do – he came alive. He started the quarter with a big triple to put the Celtics up by two, then buried this 3-pointer that the NBA’s stat site listed as a 25-footer, which is pretty clearly an underestimation by at least six or seven feet.
For good measure, White swished another 3-pointer with four minutes left that wasn’t quite a dagger but sure felt like a big one, pushing the Celtics’ lead to seven as the Heat wobbled dangerously.
“The best clutch 3-point shooter in the NBA,” NBC Sports Boston’s Drew Carter exclaimed on the broadcast, which isn’t just chatter – White is now shooting a staggering 60.9 percent (14-for-23) from deep in 27 clutch opportunities this season.
White finished the fourth with 12 of his 18 points, shooting 4-for-7 from the field.
The Celtics got off to their strong start largely thanks to Holiday, who scored 16 of his 25 points in the first half to lead all scorers going into the break. Holiday made four triples in the first half, and while he didn’t contribute much in the fourth quarter, he pitched in nine points in the fourth and shot 10-for-15 from the field.
When Holiday is making 3-pointers, he becomes a somewhat underrated weapon for a Celtics offense that has plenty of higher profile weapons. Defenders have to close out hard to Holiday behind the arc, but he’s great at burrowing into them and getting to the rim when they do (just ask Tyler Herro, who was moved unceremoniously away from the rim multiple times when he tried to contain Holiday).
That is, after all, the entire concept behind the Celtics’ killer whale offense – there isn’t just one orca, but a whole pod of them. Jayson Tatum is the biggest one, but Holiday is plenty capable of taking down a seal in his own right, even if – as a reporter noted to Joe Mazzulla after the game – he is a little overlooked sometimes.
“It is overlooked, but it’s overlooked because that’s just the type of person that he is, and it’s also the type of teammate he is, and he’ll do whatever it takes to win for his team,” Joe Mazzulla said. “Tonight the ball found him early. I’m glad he was aggressive, and he was able to build through it. I thought he made some timely plays, some big-time plays, and I’m really happy for him, because he does get overlooked sometimes, but we’re really grateful to have him.”
The Celtics started double big with Al Horford and Luke Kornet, as Kristaps Porzingis sat once again with his mysterious viral illness that has sidelined him for eight out of the Celtics’ last nine games (and rendered him very ineffective in his lone appearance on Feb. 26).
In the fourth, the Celtics started and stuck with a double big look for quite a while, leaving Neemias Queta on the floor with Kornet at the start before bringing in Horford to play alongside Queta for the final 10 minutes. Queta played the entire fourth as the Celtics held the Heat to just 14 points.
Queta scored just two points, but he pulled down eight rebounds and finished +9 in the box score. Mazzulla said he played Queta so much “just to kind of mess with their matchups and some of their coverages.”
“Neemi at his best, he does an amazing job of being able to change coverages,” Mazzulla said. “He can switch, he can play in touch, does a great job of protecting the rim, and he can guard shooters. You kind of saw a little bit of all that. He had some 1-on-1 matchups with Andrew Wiggins, he got a couple in-traffic rebounds that helped the game for us, and then he was able to protect the rim on some stuff. So you saw his versatility in the fourth quarter.”
As the Celtics come down the stretch – especially in games like Friday where multiple starters were missing – don’t be surprised if we continue to see Mazzulla experiment with potential looks that could find use in specific postseason situations.
The Celtics have officially clinched a top-six seed in the Eastern Conference, which means they will not be a play-in team this season under any circumstances.
As always, it’s good to get some clarity.
On Friday, Brissett signed a 10-day contract with the 76ers, and promptly scored 14 points on 5-for-8 shooting in his debut, which was perfect for the Sixers who not only got production from their new acquisition but also picked up a much-needed loss to the Pacers, to keep pace with the Nets for the fifth-worst record in the NBA.
Taking a flier on a player like Brissett while still losing as much as possible is a pretty nice scenario for the Sixers team that finds itself in genuinely dire straits.
“We talk often,” Tatum said. “That’s my brother. Happy for him. Definitely deserves to be in the league, so hopefully he can find a home – even if it’s in Philadelphia, he’ll always be my guy.”
The Celtics’ next opponent – the aforementioned Nets, whose front office would probably really like to keep pace with the Sixers in their tank race – isn’t exactly a heavy lift, but the flight that will take the Celtics to Brooklyn could be a challenge. Saturday’s game will tip off at 6 p.m. – less than 24 hours after Friday’s – and it will be the third game in four nights for the Celtics.
The Celtics will play the Nets again at TD Garden on Tuesday before they hit the road for their last extended road trip of the season late next week.
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