Derrick White can’t repair Jayson Tatum — however he adopted his directive save the Celtics’ season

BOSTON — Earlier than Wednesday’s elimination sport towards the Knicks, Jayson Tatum despatched his Celtics teammates and coaches a textual content urging them to maintain preventing.

His message?

“Preserve making an attempt to perform the objective,” recalled Luke Kornet.

So, with their season getting ready to collapse, the Celtics put collectively one among their finest postseason performances en path to a dominant 127-102 win, forcing a Recreation 6 in a collection they beforehand trailed 3-1.

“You simply depend on the character of the blokes, the togetherness, the workers,” Mazzulla mentioned. “On the finish of the day, you don’t get to select the check that you’ve. You simply decide the way you reply to them, and that’s type of how life works.”

At a nationwide degree, the Celtics’ obituary started to be written even earlier than it was formally introduced that Tatum — the staff’s main scorer, playmaker, and rebounder this season — had ruptured his Achilles tendon. The Ringer’s Michael Pena, for instance, penned a narrative titled: “This Is the Finish of the Celtics as We Know Them,” echoing a story that dominated tv and print media all day Tuesday.

However 61-win defending champions don’t simply collapse as a result of one participant will get harm, even when that participant is without doubt one of the finest on the earth.

And the staff’s two longest-tenured gamers — Al Horford and Jaylen Brown — made positive of it. The duo gathered the group for a dialog with a unified message: the Celtics, similar to Tatum communicated, needed to maintain preventing.

And, all of it needed to start on the defensive finish.

“Protection. That’s all I’m speaking about — protection,” Brown mentioned. “Simply, nothing simple. Guard your yard, discover a solution to get stops, dig deep, mano a mano, win your matchups, play protection. That’s just about been the emphasis.”

Nobody tried to reduce the feelings of Tatum’s harm, or deny that it will be tough to switch the six-time All-Star.

“On the similar time, we do have a possibility to maneuver ahead,” Kornet mentioned of Brown and Horford’s message. “You simply gotta take it in the future at a time.”

Derrick White helped spearhead the victory with a 34-point onslaught

The scoring was going to have to come back from someplace.

Enter Derrick White.

White, one among Tatum’s closest associates on the roster, appeared virtually helpless when requested after the win how he was navigating the feelings of Tatum’s harm.

The 2 associates are briefly in several Northeastern cities: Tatum is in New York Metropolis, bedridden and targeted on his restoration, whereas White is in Boston and preventing with the Celtics to stave off elimination.

“All I can do, actually, is to textual content him and inform him I imagine in him and know he’s gonna have an amazing comeback from this setback,” White mentioned.

However White did an entire lot extra than simply ship Tatum nicely needs on Wednesday.

Within the famous person’s absence, he put collectively a masterful offensive efficiency when the Celtics wanted it most: tallying 34 factors on 9 of 16 taking pictures, together with 7 of 13 from downtown.

He scored 14 of the staff’s first 18 factors and racked up a game-high 19 within the first half, retaining the Celtics’ offense afloat earlier than a large third-quarter surge blew the sport open.

And, in traditional Derrick White kind, he swatted three photographs.

“Seeing [Tatum] go down is hard,” White mentioned. “However we’ve bought a whole lot of guys out right here which can be extremely aggressive. And we didn’t need our season to finish tonight.”

However, White was removed from the one big-time contributor

Jaylen Brown put collectively one among his most spectacular performances of the season: 26 factors on 9-17 taking pictures, a career-high 12 assists, and eight rebounds, all whereas hounding Jalen Brunson on protection and limiting him to 22 factors on 7-17 taking pictures.

Luke Kornet had his most impactful playoff sport ever, tallying 10 factors (on 5-5 taking pictures), 9 rebounds, and seven blocks. Payton Pritchard, the NBA’s Sixth Man of the 12 months, tallied 17 factors and three offensive rebounds.

As a unit, the Celtics shot 44.9% from three.

“It’s not like somebody can step in and do what JT does on the degree that he does it,” White mentioned. “So we type of need to play a little bit otherwise, and simply discover methods to create offense, to rebound, simply every thing he does on the court docket — all people’s bought to step up. We did that tonight.”

Identical to Brown emphasised, it began on the defensive finish.

The Celtics held the Knicks to 35.8% taking pictures, together with 29.4% within the second half. And, they recorded 12 blocks, extra rejections than any sport this season.

“The air type of left the room after listening to the information with JT,” Brown mentioned. “We didn’t need to exit like that. We didn’t need to make no excuses. We didn’t need to come out and quit, or simply flip the season in, like what all people else most likely would anticipate. So we simply mentioned to the blokes, mentioned to one another, ‘Let’s come out, maintain an open thoughts. Simply come out and play basketball. Get able to go and guard your ass off and take it from there.’”

The Celtics gained Recreation 5 handily. However, they nonetheless path the Knicks 3-2 within the convention semifinals, and have little margin for error shifting ahead.

“Our backs are towards the wall,” White mentioned. “It’s win or go dwelling at this second. None of us desires to go dwelling. And so, we perceive that it’s solely gonna get more durable. We haven’t achieved something but. We gotta discover a solution to go to New York and win a sport.”

For the primary time in these playoffs, the Celtics aren’t favored to win a sport. However they’re not listening to betting odds or media narratives. They’re sticking collectively by way of the adversity and preventing to maintain their season alive.

Identical to Jayson Tatum requested.

“I imagine on this group,” Brown mentioned. “So, don’t rely us out simply but.”