BOSTON — For the first time since they won the NBA championship on their home floor, the Celtics hosted a playoff game at TD Garden, and the Orlando Magic paid for it in Game 1 of their first-round series.
Here is how difficult the math is for the Magic: Their two best players, Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner, combined for 59 points (24-of-51 FG), outperforming Boston’s two best players, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown (33 points combined on 14-of-36 FG), and still they were fighting an uphill battle all Easter afternoon.
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Banchero and Co. played hard, as they do, even taking a 49-48 advantage into the locker room at halftime, only for the Celtics to unleash their inner defending champion in a dominant third quarter. Led by Derrick White’s 30 points, Boston took care of business in the series opener with a 103-86 victory.
The Celtics are too deep for the Magic. Payton Pritchard, a Sixth Man of the Year finalist, and the fourth man off Boston’s bench on Sunday, embodied that. He scored 11 points in his first five minutes and 19 on eight shots. Celtics staffers rave about the 27-year-old. On the jumbotron, the Celtics asked players about their biggest pet peeves. Pritchard’s? “When people don’t give a full effort.” Effort. That is the player he is.
“That’s another dog,” Brown said of Pritchard. “He’s been showing that all year with his mentality and his mindset, and it’s going to be more of that than it is about being skillful or strategy. It’s going to be more about fighting. That’s the other side of the game that we’ve got to win. That’s the in-between. We’ve got to focus on that, and Payton, that’s been his mentality all season long. So when he gets in the game, it’s no different.”
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It took fight for the Celtics to manage these Magic. Orlando out-rebounded Boston in the opening half, grabbing 10 offensive boards, and it looked for a moment like we might see the Celtics of old — the ones who do not take their opponent as seriously as they should. And then Boston owned the second half. It mattered little to Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla, who spoke afterward as if his team had lost its way.
“We have to be better,” Mazzulla said. “There are better shift opportunities there. We can be better at rebounding, better at boxing out. We have to own our space better on the offensive end. At the end of the day, it’s one game, and there’s a whole litany of possessions that we need to get better on.”
It took some fight from Tatum, especially. He landed awkwardly on his shooting wrist after hard fouls from Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Wendell Carter Jr. Caldwell-Pope received a Flagrant 1 foul. Tatum said his wrist throbbed. Though the sensation subsided, he received an X-ray after the game.
“It’s clean,” said Tatum, whose wrist was neither iced nor wrapped in the game’s aftermath. “It’s good.”
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It will take more fight from Brown, who rested the bone bruise in his right knee for the final three games of the regular season. The Celtics do not seem too concerned about it. Nor does Brown, though he will openly discuss how he has had to adjust his game to the pain. Even that somewhat subsided with rest. Mazzulla said not to make much of Brown’s 31 minutes; the coach was tinkering with a nine-man rotation.
“We’re just getting started,” said Brown, whose two-handed dunk late in the third quarter was proof of his health. “Today was my first game back after a while. It’s the playoffs, and it’s the best time of the year, so I’m excited. This is what I live for. I’m feeling a lot better, moving a lot better, so I think that’s great.”
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It had to be a welcome sign for the Celtics to see such quality play from Jrue Holiday, too. He played his usual stout defense and added three 3-pointers, including one off a steal that broke the game open in the third quarter. He has also been banged up, dealing with mallet finger on the pinky of his shooting hand.
“That’s the Jrue I love,” Brown added. “That’s the Jrue I remember competing against. Regular season is different from the playoffs. I know sometimes y’all forget that. The intensity level is a lot different. The physicality is a lot different. Jrue loves the environment as much as I do. You can see him picking up guys, blowing through screens and just making plays, and when we get that Jrue, it’s a good sign for us.”
Everything was working for Boston, save for the very best of Tatum and Brown. And Kristaps Porziņģis, too. The 7-foot-2 center (5 points on 1-of-8 FG) was hardly his usually impactful self. They are presumably coming in this series, too — and beyond — which is a bad sign for the Magic, and for the rest of the NBA.
