Notes on a Game 1 blowout
It wasn’t really that close
Thank you for reading this free preview of Hoopology. Paid subscribers get two posts per week, one on Wednesday and another on Sunday. This week: Jayson Tatum’s injury, Jrue Holiday’s defense, Orlando’s blueprint, and my favorite Boston Marathon sign.
Let’s hoop:
Jayson Tatum’s right wrist injury is the exact reason why playing the Magic in the first round didn’t sound all that appealing. To be clear, I don’t think the contact caused by Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Wendell Carter converging on Tatum at the rim was intentionally malicious or dirty. Still: It was a legitimately hard foul, Al Hordford thought KCP was being a little ‘extra,’ and the Magic didn’t make the playoffs by being nice.
(Quick sidebar: No one in the NBA knows how to deliver a hard foul anymore. P.J. Brown was the best I ever saw at denying easy layups without causing international incidents. Now everybody swings for the head, which is way more dangerous than whatever Charles Oakley was doing back in the day.)
The Celtics are describing this as a bone bruise, which doesn’t mean Tatum’s getting off easy. Wrist injuries require time to heal, and they tend to linger well past the supposed recovery date. Take it from someone who’s suffered a half dozen wrist injuries tripping over rocks in the woods, some of them never really go away.
Tatum has suited up in every one of the 114 playoff games the Celtics have played during his career. That remarkable streak has been completely taken for granted until right now. To his credit, Tatum is infamously stubborn about playing games even when the team would rather he sit them out. This might be one of those times when discretion is the better part of valor.
It will be very interesting to see how Game 2 is called relative to the opener when the officials let a lot of perimeter contact go. That was fine because they kept it consistent. A different crew might have whistled twice as many fouls.
Given the Tatum situation along with a desperate team trying to win on the road, expect the physicality to be ratcheted up a notch. If both teams are in the bonus midway through the first quarter, you’ll know we’re in for a long night.
You can see the rough outline of how Jamahl Mosely and the Magic want to steal a game in this series. Slow everything down to a late 90s pace, bang away from the mid-range with Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner, muck things up on defense with length and physicality. Mike Fratello’s Cavs played exactly the same way and it was tough to watch back then too.
Orlando executed its game plan perfectly in the second quarter of Game 1, which shows it can be done. Still, it’s hard to live that way for 48 minutes on the road in the playoffs against a superior opponent. Especially when you don’t win the free throw battle. Orlando has to live at the line to have a chance. (See previous point about officiating.)
It’s funny that Jrue Holiday hitting a couple of 3’s in the third quarter got so much attention when it was his defense on Banchero that actually turned the Game 1 tide. Banchero got whatever he wanted in the first half, especially in the second quarter when he and the Magic controlled the pace and the scoreboard.
Holiday changed all that by simply bodying Banchero 20 feet from the basket. It’s nuts that Holiday’s giving up half a foot, a dozen years, and 50 pounds in this matchup, but that’s why he’s going to wind up in the Hall of Fame. (Dude, if Michael Cooper is a Hall of Famer, Jrue Holiday is a Hall of Famer.)
I ran the Boston Marathon on Monday, which is something every runner should experience at least once in their life. The crowds are insane. Just an incredible groundswell of positive energy for 26.2 miles. One of my favorite parts of the race experience were the signs. A few favorites:
Pain is just French for bread
You’re running better than the government
Do it for Derrick White
I’m not sure any athlete is as revered in greater Boston as Derrick White right now. People freaking love that guy. Not the Magic. But everyone else.
Before his injury, it seemed like Tatum was searching for a way into the game. If D-White’s going to hit 7 3’s and Payton Pritchard’s going to score 19 points in 24 minutes, there’s no need for Tatum to put on his Superstar cape. His rebounding was excellent, which just shows he can impact the game in numerous ways.
Conversely, Jaylen Brown’s Game 1 was solid because he played his way into the flow without going out of his way to make it his own. JB seemed to be moving pretty well defensively, and 30 minutes seems like an appropriate amount of time. It’s odd how expectations work. One can praise Brown for not making himself the main attraction and criticize Tatum for the same offense.
The bottom line is the C’s are good enough to win a playoff game by 17 points without either of their two stars having even remotely close to their best performance. To say nothing of Kristaps Porzingis’ production, which was basically nil. What a team.
You know who else played well? Sam Hauser. For a shooter who took only one shot, Hauser’s hustle impacted every one of his nine minutes. Three boards, one assist, and one block may not sound like much, but it looked like a Plus-9 on the scoreboard while he was on the court.
Pritchard’s bench scoring got all the love, but if Orlando’s role players are going to get outscored and outworked by their Boston counterparts in this series, the Magic may as well start booking flights to Cancun.
Hoopology’s Key Questions for Game 2
Will Tatum play, and if so, how will the injury affect his game? That’s pretty much the most important thing going right now.
Can any of Orlando’s role players make shots? Hubie Brown’s famous, and possibly incorrect, home/road theorem looms large here.
Will hope turn to doubt? If the Magic truly believe they can get back in this series, Boston’s job is to make that belief seem illogical by the third quarter timeout.