Court Sense: A White-hot start for the Celtics - The Boston Globe (2025)

Recovering from watching theBoston Marathon, not running it, to be clear. What am I,Drew Carter?

Anyway, before Carter and a few thousand other lunatics (that’s a compliment) took the 26.2-mile trip from Hopkinton to Back Bay, the Celtics started the 16-win journey required to defend their NBA title on Sunday.

As has been noted in this newsletter many, many times, the scariest thing about this Boston team is that its two stars can be struggling — Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown combined for just 33 points on 14 of 36 shooting — and it just doesn’t matter.Derrick White can step up for 30 points of his own, and the Celticsbeat the Magic by 17 to take a Game 1 win.

It wasn’t exactly pretty, as Boston surrendered an early double-digit lead to trail by a point at halftime. But the Celtics took control with a dominant third quarter and closed outan Orlando team that really can’t do a lot offensively outside of giving the ball to Paolo Banchero and hoping for the best.

Speaking of hoping for the best: Celtics fans will continue to keep their fingers crossed that Tatum won’t have any lingering wrist issuesafter taking a nasty fall on a foulfrom Kentavious Caldwell-Pope at the basket. Coach Joe Mazzulla said Tuesday that Tatum is day-to-day.

One of the strange things from that moment: the announcers appearing to missCaldwell-Pope grab Tatum’s arm and pull him into an awkward fall, thus earning a flagrant foul. Don’t make weird contact with players in the air!

(Joe Mazzulla mostly just yelled at Tatum to get up, because, you know, Joe Mazzulla.)

One of my favorite moments from Sunday came from Payton Pritchard,who shook Cole Anthony with a nice little step-through movefor a layup, because sometimes Pritchard decides he’s just Steve Nash now, I guess.

And another favorite: Luke Kornet on the big board,saying his biggest pet peeve is “people who don’t open up.”

I’m not really one to declare a series over after one game,lest I find myself like the Red Sox commentary teamafter clowning the White Sox the other week (just before Chicago took two straight games from Boston).

The Celtics will probably drop a game in this series, it’ll probably seem like they’re not particularly locked in, and it’ll probably be at home. That was kind of the fun little pattern last year, after all.

But it’s hard to imagine the Magic having much for the Celtics. When you limit Boston’s two stars to 33 combined points, limit Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday to 14 combined points, get a brilliant 36-point outing from your own star in Banchero, andstillget mopped?

It’s looking likea very long (or, actually, very short) series for Orlando.

Let’s get into it.

By Dan Shaughnessy

Sorry if I can’t get all lathered up about this Celtics-Magic first-round playoff matchup. I mean, it was good to see the Celtics win, 103-86 — the NBA requires Boston win 15 more games between now and mid-June to earn back-to-back championships — and I know they have to play somebody, but if this isn’t a four-game sweep, Adam Silver should put Ted Wells on the case.

Orlando led the Celtics at halftime Sunday at TD Garden, but there was never a moment when this game was in question. It was 91-73 in the fifth minute of the fourth and the most tension I could find in the Causeway Street gym was inspired by the sight of Celtics co-owner Steve Pagliuca, sitting at midcourt alongside present owner/governor Wyc Grousbeck and next owner Bill Chisholm.

There’s a big bowl of awkward. For those of you who’ve not been paying attention, Wyc’s family put the Celts up for sale last year and Pags tried to buy the team from his partner, only to be steamrolled by Chisholm’s $6.1 billion bid.

Yikes.

Continue reading

Other top stories we’re watching ...

• The Celtics took Game 1 against the Magic behind the hot shooting of Derrick White.Adam Himmelsbach’s takeaways are here.
• Jaylen Brown didn’t shoot particularly well on Sunday, but he delivered a strong message for those concerned about his knee.Gary Washburn has more.
• Derrick White and Jrue Holiday, in different ways, were the driving forces in the Celtics’ Game 1 win.Khari A. Thompson breaks it down.

Each week, we’ll be asking a piece of Celtics trivia to test your knowledge on the 18-time champions.

Congratulations to Jim Vaughan of Millbury, the first person to correctly answer last week’s question. As a refresher, we asked you to name the last time the Celtics won 60-plus games in back-to-back seasons.

The answer is 2007-08 and 2008-09, when the “Big Three” Celtics, led by Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Ray Allen, won 66 and 62 games in consecutive years.

Those Celtics couldn’t quite repeat, falling to (isn’t this funny?) the Magic in the 2009 Eastern Conference semis with Garnett sidelined by injury.

Anyway, here’s this week’s question: Who is the Celtics’ all-time leading scorer (by total points scored) in the playoffs?

Know the answer? Send us an email atcourtsense@globe.com, and the first person to write in with the correct answer will get a shoutout when the answer is revealed in next week’s newsletter. Good luck!

The Celtics host the Magic for Game 2 on Wednesday (7 p.m., TNT/NBC Sports Boston).

See the full Celtics schedule here.

This story first appeared in Court Sense, a biweekly Celtics newsletter from Boston Globe Sports. Click here to join the fun.

Amin Touri can be reached at amin.touri@globe.com.