BOSTON — Fresh off a season-high five-game road trip, the Boston Celtics weren’t themselves right away. Even against the No. 9-seeded Chicago Bulls, it took a while to reacclimate on Monday night.
Just 48 hours prior, the Celtics crafted an offensive masterpiece headlined by Jaylen Brown’s 50-point extravaganza versus the Los Angeles Clippers. Boston tied its season-high in points with 146 that night, while Brown matched his career-high, leaving the team with a savory taste to close its road trip before returning home.
Back home at TD Garden, the Celtics didn’t look anything like the team that destroyed Kawhi Leonard and James Harden and took over the Intuit Dome nearly 3,000 miles out west. Even head coach Joe Mazzulla admitted it was a little rough on the eyes to start.
“They didn’t look very good out there, but they played hard,” Mazzulla said following Boston’s 115-101 win. “I was not pleased with how they looked, but I was pleased with how they tried, how they played, and how they competed. But they looked relatively tired.”
The Celtics first held the Bulls to 14 points in the first quarter, the fewest they’ve allowed an opponent to start a game this season. Not only did it help keep Chicago’s offense on edge from the opening tip, but it also established the driving force that helped camouflage an atypical performance from Boston throughout the first half — something the Celtics leaned on heavily once it came time to rest at the game’s intermission.
Brown made only one of his first 11 shot attempts. The team connected on just six of its first 21 3-pointers. Yet, underlying a visibly unfamiliar first-half effort from the Celtics was a defensive edge that remained consistent from the first quarter to the final buzzer.
With that, there was no room for concern from Mazzulla’s perspective.
“Something had to give,” Mazzulla said. “Either you’re coming into the game, and it’s, ‘We’re going to have the shots, we’re going to make shots, we’re going to do that.’ But for us to not shoot the ball well at all in that first half, but to play well defensively, that’s the sign of a mature team. So it was impressive. The way they were able to compete tonight — I just liked the competitive spirit throughout the entire game.”
Through the defensive storm that Boston unleashed on Chicago, the Bulls only managed to make it out with 33 points by halftime. Playing without guard Josh Giddey — the team’s leader in scoring, rebounds, and assists — Chicago, too, struggled to awaken its offense. The first 24 minutes were comparable to watching wet paint dry, a result of playing five games in eight days.
“It’s definitely hard,” Payton Pritchard said. “Very jet-lagged and tired, so just to mentally get through it and figure out how to win.”
Pritchard dug into his bag of tricks to help boost morale during the closing seconds of the second quarter by hitting a 27-foot fadeaway 3-pointer to beat the buzzer. His finishing move uplifted Boston’s faithful (and patient) crowd. It also provided the Celtics’ sideline with a breath of fresh air and signaled a much-needed turning point before the start of the third quarter.
“Just back to hitting buzzer beaters,” Pritchard said. “I think that might’ve been my first that was a legit shot, not at the rim this year. So it felt good to hit one.”
Boston found its momentum in the second half, primarily through its depth. Anfernee Simons came off the bench and scored 27 points — all in the final two quarters. Pritchard scored 11 points en route to a 21-point night to lead the starting lineup, and the team fell back into its regular form, shooting 45.8% from the field and 45.2% from 3-point territory — all while keeping its defensive intensity intact.
Still, the sight of watching Simons knock down eight 3-pointers in the second half wasn’t enough for Mazzulla to overlook everything that went right in the first half. Because that’s what kept the Celtics within reach of breaking away from the Bulls in the second half.
“We had 14 offensive and forced eight turnovers in the first half. I think that’s the key,” Mazzulla explained. “Our defense kept us in it. Our offensive rebounding kept us in it. As long as we can continue those margins, those are the things that allow you to play the way that you need to play when you’re not at your best from a shooting standpoint.”
It wasn’t pretty, and it didn’t align with the standards of Celtics basketball, but it was enough. On a night when everyone in the locker room was exhausted, the team didn’t succumb to the habit of mailing in a loss even if it felt like the easiest escape. Boston patiently entrusted the principles that worked and built a strong enough foundation to position the team for a breakthrough.
Mazzulla knew, at some point, it would arrive.
“I do have trust in the multiple guys that we have, that we will get out of that,” Mazzulla said. “Whether it’s Derrick (White), whether it’s Jaylen, whether it’s Payton, whether it’s Ant, whether it’s Sam (Hauser), whether it’s the other guys getting offensive rebounds and getting shots for us. I’m confident in those guys because I know we’ll compete on the defensive end, and that’s where it has to start.”
