Derrick White’s presence shaped a Boston Celtics effort that the Los Angeles Clippers anticipated, but still couldn’t prevent on Saturday night.
It also encapsulated everything the Celtics are trying to establish themselves as, too.
The 3-point shooting, the ability to contest any shot at the rim, and the relentless energy — those are givens from White each time he takes the floor. Everyone around the league knows that by now, but there wasn’t a scouting report strong enough to mitigate White’s impact or its influence on the rest of the Celtics during Boston’s 146-115 win over the Clippers at Intuit Dome.
“His ability to help, reading the game, understanding how to play,” Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue told reporters, per FanDuel Sports Network West. “They came into the game tonight saying they were going to let Kawhi (Leonard) and James (Harden) play, and we knew that coming in. They shrunk the floor. They had four or five guys in the paint. They had guys overhelping, and we just have to keep trusting the pass, which I thought we did a decent job of. But they were basically saying, ‘We’re not going to let James and Kawhi play tonight,’ so they did a good job.”
What should’ve been an offensive tag-team slugfest between Leonard and Harden versus White and Jaylen Brown instead turned into a second-half runaway. Leonard and Harden combined for 40 points, while White and Brown accounted for 79 of Boston’s points — Brown alone outscored the Leonard-Harden duo with a historic 50 points, the most ever by a Celtic against the Clippers. Nothing could’ve prepared Los Angeles for what the White-Brown tandem brought to the table offensively, and that was only the beginning.
Even though Brown’s 50-ball was devastating for the Clippers to overcome, the intangibles that make D. White D. White were so contagious they catapulted the Celtics to their optimal form as a team.
Hidden in the shadows of Brown’s destructive December tear, in which he averaged a league-leading 31.7 points, has been an ongoing defensive masterclass from his right-hand man. White’s career-high seven-block performance against the Utah Jazz on Dec. 30 — the second-most by any player this season — was just the peak. He’s consistently made life more difficult for the premier scorers on opposing teams, creating a team-wide domino effect.
In the first quarter, White shrugged off guarding Derrick Jones Jr. and swatted Harden’s layup attempt at the rim. In the fourth quarter, while the Celtics held a convincing 24-point lead with 5:31 remaining, White blocked Jordan Miller’s layup, as Boston cruised through the final frame. The Celtics held Los Angeles to just 16 points on 6-of-17 shooting (35.3%) for those final 12 minutes, dropping the Clippers to 10 games below .500 (12-22).
“We’re just hungry,” White told reporters, per CLNS Media. “Everyone kind of doubted us, and we’ve got a lot of guys with a chip on their shoulder — guys who’ve been waived or whatever, who haven’t really had the opportunity in the NBA. Now they’re getting that chance, so we’re just playing hard, and it’s been a lot of fun.”
White’s 13 points in the fourth quarter nearly matched what the Clippers scored as a team.
Jordan Walsh, who played only 12 minutes, maximized his opportunity and grabbed a career-best 13 rebounds off the bench. Luka Garza, also coming off the bench, grabbed three offensive rebounds (six in total) with 11 points. Garza turned two of those offensive boards into second-chance points, first assisting an Anfernee Simons 3-pointer and then drawing a foul to sink two free throws with the other.
Boston’s road trip finale served as the latest statement in a season of raising the bar from early skepticism about tanking for draft capital to now chasing the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 seed.
“You never really know going into the season, but I was pretty confident in the summer that we’d do a lot of good things,” White told reporters.
The Celtics grabbed 16 more rebounds (46-30) than the Clippers, doubling LA’s offensive boards (16-8). They knocked down nine more 3-pointers (24-15) to tie their season high, racked up more fastbreak points (15-9), and grew their lead to 33 points. White credits all of it — everything Boston’s unproven and counted out crew have become — to the tireless hours put in by those behind the scenes and on the sidelines.
“The coaching staff,” White told reporters. “We watch a lot of film, and we’re just trying to continue to be a consistent team and do what we need to do to win games. So it starts with the coaching staff, and everybody around here is coachable. They coach us pretty hard, so it’s been a lot of fun.”
