Ironically, the toughest three-point attempt of them all — a banked-in heave at the third-quarter buzzer by Payton Pritchard, the diminutive reserve guard’s only make of the night — loosened the mood on a tense evening and set up Boston to bring home the victory in the final period.
“The play of the game that can’t go unnoticed, [that shows] the humility of our team, was Payton’s shot at the end of the quarter,” Coach Joe Mazzulla said. “You see guys around the league pass up on that shot or fake like they want to take it so their [shooting] numbers don’t get messed up. He takes pride in taking that. That’s winning basketball. That shot gave us a little bit of poise and momentum that we needed heading into the fourth quarter.”
Pritchard’s prayer boosted Boston’s lead from six points to nine heading into the fourth quarter, and Dallas never got closer than five the rest of the way. With the Mavericks mounting a desperate comeback bid and hoping to make it a one-possession game in the final minute, Celtics guard Derrick White raced down the court to block P.J. Washington at the rim. White tracked all the back from his position in front of Dallas’s bench, picking up pace as he crossed halfcourt before taking three long strides as he entered the paint to perfectly time his swat.
“I just put my head down and run,” White said. “Then just trust the instincts and trust the timing that I have. I got dunked on earlier [in the game]. Being not afraid to get dunked on allows me to get some [blocks] that other people wouldn’t have gotten. I just tried to make a play and believe in my abilities.”
Capitalizing on White’s block, Jaylen Brown opportunistically attacked the hoop on the other end for a dagger bucket with 29.8 seconds remaining. The Celtics improved to 5-0 in this postseason in games that were within five points in the final five minutes.
Boston’s breezy Game 1 victory became a distant memory as soon as Game 2 tipped off. The Celtics missed their first eight three-point attempts, coming up empty from outside until Al Horford finally connected from the left corner right before the end of the first quarter. Their slow start was made worse by Jayson Tatum’s indecision: The five-time all-star spent most of the early going in his own head, declining open scoring opportunities in favor of shuffling the ball to his teammates.
But the Celtics managed to take a 64-61 lead into halftime because the Mavericks were again unable to conjure enough help for Luka Doncic. The Slovenian star posted a game-high 32 points to go with 11 rebounds and 11 assists, but his teammates combined to shoot 2 for 17 from deep. Mavericks guard Kyrie Irving left a lot to be desired for the second straight game, finishing with 16 points on 7-for-18 shooting while facing constant boos from the TD Garden crowd.
After being listed as questionable on the pregame injury report with a chest contusion, Doncic was late to take the court for warmups and wore a bandage around his chest before tip-off. Though he led the Mavericks to Game 2 victories in their previous three series and came out hunting offense in the midrange, Doncic couldn’t keep up his furious scoring pace and had just nine points in the second half.
“I was okay [physically],” he said. “We’ve got to make some more shots. I think my [eight] turnovers and my [four] missed free throws cost us the game. I’ve got to do way better in those two categories.”
The Celtics finished 10 for 39 (25.6 percent) from deep, their second-worst outside shooting night of the playoffs. Tatum scored 18 points on 6-for-22 shooting, but he dished 12 assists and regularly found Jrue Holiday for cutting baskets to buoy Boston’s unsteady attack. Holiday paced the Celtics with 26 points and 11 rebounds, and he hit a three-pointer and came up with a key offensive rebound to set up a White three-pointer on back-to-back possessions in crunchtime.
“I don’t think I’m shredding the defense,” said Holiday, who went 11 for 14 from the field. “I think it’s more so [Tatum] and [Brown]. Especially tonight, [Tatum] was getting into the paint, being double-teamed, making the right plays and finding me. He has that vision as a playmaker.”
Mavericks Coach Jason Kidd put the spotlight on Tatum before Game 2, twice declaring Brown to be Boston’s “best player.” The provocative comments begged the question: Would Tatum, who has struggled to shoot in these playoffs, do too much in an attempt to prove Kidd wrong?
Game 2 provided a mixed and somewhat messy answer. Tatum didn’t make a shot in the first quarter, missed multiple point-blank shots as the night unfolded and connected on only one of his seven three-point attempts. Faced with a wall of defenders, he hesitated repeatedly and committed three turnovers.
But Tatum also came within one assist of his playoff career high, driving hard into traffic to attract attention before finding Holiday, who lurked near the paint for much of the night, or one of Boston’s perimeter shooters.
“Every time I take a couple dribbles, there are three people there,” Tatum said. “We have a bunch of shooters on our team. They kept leaving Jrue open. It wasn’t like I had to do anything spectacular. It was about finding the open guy. … We’re so close to what we’re trying to accomplish. Why would I let my ego or my need to score all the points get in the way of that?”
Mazzulla indirectly shot back at Kidd, making a point to note the Celtics operate as a balanced collective while adding that “Jayson makes greatness look easy” by contributing “in a lot of ways” despite his off shooting night.
“I’m really tired of hearing about this guy or that guy and everybody trying to make it out to be anything other than Celtic basketball,” Mazzulla said. “Everybody that stepped on that court today made winning plays on both ends of the floor. That’s the most important thing.”
While all five Dallas starters finished in double figures, its second unit combined for just nine points. Kidd turned to backups Maxi Kleber and Dante Exum, but neither was able to make an impact. Kleber, who missed much of Dallas’s postseason run with a shoulder injury, missed on all four of his shots, leaving Kidd without enough production from his frontcourt rotation.
The series shifts to Dallas’s American Airlines Center for Game 3 on Wednesday with Boston in full command, knowing it protected its home court — winning a pretty Game 1 and an ugly Game 2 — without getting a signature scoring performance from Tatum. The Mavericks’ to-do list remains unchanged: Their lagging offense needs Irving to get on track, Washington to find his range and greater contributions from their role players. Dallas fell to 1-6 in the playoffs when it scores fewer than 100 points, compared to 11-2 when it surpasses that threshold.
The sighs of relief will be deep for the Celtics, who lost Game 2 in the first round because they were outshot by Miami, which got red-hot from deep. Then they dropped Game 2 in the second round against Cleveland after their worst outside shooting performance of this playoff run. This time, they made sure the three-point line didn’t decide the game by keeping their wits and continuing to hold the Mavericks’ supporting cast in check.
“We didn’t hit shots,” Brown said. “I thought we had a bunch of great looks. But we didn’t panic. We kept guarding, stayed in the game, kept trusting it and made enough to win. We expect to shoot the ball better going forward when we get on the road.”