The Celtics officially secured their place in the 2025 NBA playoffs Friday night with a win over the Miami Heat.
Jrue Holiday scored 25 points — his highest regular-season total in a Celtics uniform — on efficient 10-of-15 shooting as Boston won 103-91 at the Kaseya Center.
Jayson Tatum finished with a game-high 28 points, offsetting his five turnovers, and Derrick White (18 points, five rebounds, four assists, two steals) fueled a fourth-quarter surge that turned a tight game into a comfortable victory.
The Celtics were missing two starters in Kristaps Porzingis, who missed his eighth straight game with an illness, and Jaylen Brown, who sat out with a knee injury on the first night of a back-to-back. Boston will visit the Brooklyn Nets on Saturday night.
The win, coupled with Atlanta’s loss to the Los Angeles Clippers, clinched a playoff spot for the defending champion Celtics, extending their streak of consecutive postseason appearances to 11. They’ll almost certainly enter as the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference, as they’re unlikely to the jump first-place Cleveland Cavaliers or fall behind the third-place New York Knicks with 15 games remaining.
The Celtics hit their first four 3-pointers and first five field goals to open up an early double-digit lead. The driver of that opening surge: Holiday, who accounted for four of Boston’s first six made baskets after scuffling in Wednesday’s home loss to Oklahoma City (4-for-10; 1-for-7 from three). Still sporting a cast on his injured right pinky finger, the veteran guard scored more points in the first five minutes (10) than he had in nine of his previous 11 full games.
“I wanted to just stay aggressive,” Holiday told NBC Sports Boston sideline reporter Abby Chin. “Those first three felt good, so after that, I just wanted to see more go in.”
Holiday has been dealing with a mallet finger injury that sidelined him for four games earlier this month.
“I’m doing the best I can,” he told Chin. “Tonight was a good day. Sometimes when I catch, it feels weird, but there’s no excuses out here. They don’t care that my finger’s broken or I have mallet finger, so I’m just trying to come out here every game and focus in and try to lock in.”
Payton Pritchard (11 points, three steals) also chipped in a three and a well-worked post-up — slithering past Miami’s Davion Mitchell for a step-through layup — as Boston’s lead swelled to 14 points. But it didn’t take the Heat long to erase it. Led by Mitchell and Andrew Wiggins, they ripped off a 28-12 run to take a 39-37 lead midway through the second quarter.
Holiday halted Miami’s momentum with back-to-back threes — both coming off offensive rebounds by White and Al Horford — but the Celtics made just one field goal over the final four minutes of the first half and entered halftime tied at 50-50.
A similar pattern played out to start the second half. Holiday quickly hit his fifth 3-pointer of the night, but no other Celtic made a shot from the field until the 7:13 mark of the third quarter. During that drought, Tatum committed three turnovers. He ended it with a straightaway three, though, and was much more effective as the quarter progressed.
Holiday scored nine points in the third, following up his early three with two layups and a jumper in the lane. He also assisted on back-to-back threes by Sam Hauser and Pritchard, the latter of which put Boston ahead 73-72. Holiday then ceded the floor to Tatum, who closed the quarter with a three, a steal and a stepback elbow jumper over Wiggins.
The Celtics fell behind again early in the fourth quarter. That’s when White, who’d gone 0-for-6 from beyond the arc to that point, took over. During one game-changing sequence, he hit two threes, found Luke Kornet inside for an open layup, drew a foul on an offensive rebound and forced Wiggins into a traveling violation by rejecting his shot at the rim.
That succession of clutch plays helped Boston take an 88-79 with Tatum and Holiday on the bench — and survive the nearly five-minute scoring drought that ensued. White hit another three with just under four minutes remaining to ward off a brief Miami rally, and the Celtics’ defense held the Heat to just 14 fourth-quarter points.
Fourth-string center Neemias Queta, who saw a larger role with Porzingis out, played the entire fourth quarter, registering seven rebounds and one block. Boston outscored Miami by nine points over his 23 total minutes.
“I thought (the defense) was pretty good throughout most of the game,” Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla told reporters. “… I felt like in the first half, we just gave them too many transition fouls. We had, like, five transition fouls that were able to keep them in it. Then I thought some guys hit some shots. But I thought we stuck with it. In the fourth quarter, we were obviously able to dominate the paint with our rebounding and did a great job in our coverages. So we definitely took it to another level.”
Tatum provided the dagger by drilling a corner three with 57 seconds remaining.
The Heat are a possible first-round playoff opponent for the Celtics, as they currently sit ninth in the Eastern Conference. As the expected No. 2 seed, Boston likely will play the winner of the 7 vs. 8 play-in game, which, in the current standings, would pit the Hawks against the Magic. Miami is within two games of Orlando but has lost six straight.
Boston’s remaining schedule is stocked with lottery-bound opponents, beginning Saturday against Brooklyn. Porzingis’ availability will be a storyline to watch entering that game. Though the center did not play against the Heat, he did travel with the team to Miami and participate in morning shootaround, suggesting he’s nearing a return from what he called a “viral illness” that’s sidelined him since Feb. 26.
Off the rim
Kornet attempted his first true 3-pointer of the season in the win, missing from the right corner during the second quarter. The backup center’s only previous 3-point attempt was an end-of-quarter heave, coincidentally also against Miami on Feb. 10. The 7-footer averaged more than eight threes per 36 minutes in his first two NBA seasons, but he’s almost entirely eliminated that aspect of his game. … The 76ers added yet another ex-Celtic to their injury-ravaged roster, signing forward Oshae Brissett to a 10-day contract. Brissett, who won a title with Boston last season and had been playing for Brooklyn’s G League team, joins fellow Celtics alums Guerschon Yabusele and Lonnie Walker IV in Philadelphia.
Originally Published: March 14, 2025 at 9:59 PM EDT
