PHILADELPHIA — The play looked familiar. Jayson Tatum stood in the back court. Derrick White in-bounded the ball to Marcus Smart and he handed it off to Tatum charging toward the basket with under five seconds remaining. Enough time to hit the breaks, set, fire and win a thriller above all others this Celtics season.
Joel Embiid almost added another layer and different result seconds later with a one-handed heave barreling into the basket too late. Officials gathered to confirm the miss. Embiid already did so by ducking his head. The Celtics won, 110-107, after overcoming a 15-point deficit early in the third quarter and squandering a 10-point advantage late in the fourth. Mazzulla, after Embiid tied the game with free throws while 10.8 seconds remained, called timeout a first, then a second time to set up the play he told CLNS Media he stole from Brad Stevens.
“Just get the ball to Smart, have Jayson create separation and then just make a play from there,” Mazzulla said. “I knew we had two timeouts, I knew they had a foul to give, so it was just a matter of what the lineup was and what they were going to do, so we had options. You can do a bunch of different stuff out of it, so it’s just a matter of reading where the defenders are, Smart made a great play and J.T. did a great job making separation. In situations like that, players have to make plays and they did.”
The same play design sent an October game between the Celtics and Cavaliers to overtime when Tatum received the ball in the same position from Smart and kept tearing downhill into a slam over Jarrett Allen. Isaiah Thomas formerly utilized the sets under Stevens and given that Jaylen Brown, Al Horford and Smart played in Boston then, while Tatum and others received coaching from Stevens, it led to seamless execution of a play Philadelphia could’ve read given its prior usage and the multiple timeouts it required to set up.
Tatum told Grant Williams on the play before he’d send the Celtics on to New York without another overtime, which would’ve marked a league-high 10th, as Williams helped him to his feet. He celebrated the cancellation of Embiid’s shot after the jumbotron showed it, and greeted DeVonta Smith before announcing people to see and things to do in the big city early this week. Tatum couldn’t wait to escape Wells Fargo Arena.
“I’ve run it only a few times with Brad,” Grant told CLNS. “So it’s just a matter of something over the years you’ve seen work, and making a few variations of it. So if that doesn’t work with J.T., there’s other things that can be done. Brad did it in the Bubble, we’ve done that play a lot, so (Mazzulla) called it and then it was like, D.White was on the floor, he had an outlet, didn’t run it, so alright, we called timeout, drew it up and got it going.”
The more difficult decision arrived five minutes earlier when Mazzulla pulled White and Malcolm Brogdon after they led a 43-18 run in the second half to go ahead by double-digits. Smart struggled, shooting 4-for-11 while the Celtics lost his minutes by 22 points. Mazzulla positioned him to sit between the middle of the third and late in the fourth before returning to him.
He fouled four times, trying repeatedly throughout the game to draw charges that instead ended with him tangled in a web of bodies receiving a blocking foul. Williams and Smart complained to Marc Davis’ crew throughout, and they still landed in the crunch time lineup. Grant missed a pair of threes, but freed Tatum for one with a down screen and his second try landed in Tatum’s palm for a put back. Smart delivered Tatum the decisive feed.
Mazzulla stressed humility for his roster after Thursday’s win over Indiana featured only six Williams minutes, a larger role for Sam Hauser and none for Mike Muscala. That tightened rotation carried over to Philadelphia, where Williams regained his playing time, Brogdon saw his reduced and White watched crunch time from the bench on a night where he shot 7-for-9. Those rotations become the story following a loss. Instead, they’re a reality of winning the Celtics managed through a night that featured frustrations throughout, including with fans.
“It’s an understanding,” Horford told CLNS. “We all know what we have, and it’s the first time we’re at full strength all year, and we all have to make sacrifices. Every night, we have so much depth that it can be anyone, any night stepping up and doing it, and we’re playing for something bigger than getting numbers individually. We’re trying to get wins and we’re trying to do it as a group. I think tonight was a good example of that. I feel like Jaylen led us early on, gave us that boost, got us going. Derrick was great again tonight, and different guys kept stepping up. Rob made a huge difference tonight … we all want to do great things, and you have to make sacrifices. I feel like our locker room, we understand that.”
White and Grant entered in the first half after Philadelphia built a narrow lead by swarming the paint defensively and drawing free throws for Embiid. The 76ers garnered 35 attempts to Boston’s 12, and an early exchange of possessions set off Smart, who wanted a delay of game called. Grant settled the defense with a stop on Embiid and White hit a pull-up two to keep their deficit within single digits. Embiid hit eight free throws before halftime to maintain it.
De’Anthony Melton, James Harden and Tobias Harris all hit threes after halftime to push the Celtics behind 67-52 before Tatum and Horford settled into the pick-and-pop. Horford hit back-to-back-to-back threes, nodding his head toward the crowd before answering Embiid’s jumper with a fourth to pull within one point. The fourth featured Brown, Williams III and White pushing the pace and a lead, ahead 95-85 by running the break. A poor pass open the door for a series of Harden and Tyrese Maxey transition runs that established another Sixers lead, 103-102. Mazzulla didn’t call timeout as the building rocked, rotating his fists to turn the pace up.
Tatum found Horford one more time for three as Wells Fargo Arena shook. Mazzulla drew up a play for the win severals sets later, calling Tatum’s number despite the air ball that preceded it. That setup stemmed from continued trust he stressed since the opening weeks, that they can make the right plays within his sets, adapt to different roles each night and convert the open threes, 16-of-36 Saturday.
“Humility and trust,” Mazzulla said. “That’s going to be the nature of our team as we continue to grow. We have to have the ability to understand that guys are going to be playing well. We have to have the trust that, when we put our team on the floor, we’re going to execute.”
