BOSTON — Derrick White lit the TD Garden crowd on fire on Thursday night. After a back-and-forth first half of action against the Philadelphia 76ers on Opening Night, he entered the third quarter as a new man. Every time he touched the ball, it turned to gold. And he wasn’t the only one.
Three after three, free-throw after free-throw, the Celtics sprinted in transition every chance they got in the third. A 35-point showing in the box score outmatched Philly’s measly 18.
But the fourth was a different story.
“I mean, if you give up 42, you probably give up a little bit of everything,” Joe Mazzulla said after the game.
The Celtics won the game in the third quarter but lost it in the fourth
After failing to even crack 20 points in the third, the Sixers enjoyed a 42-point outburst to close the gap and pick up a 117-116 win in Boston.
And it was the Tyrese Maxey show that did it.
“We let Maxey get going,” said Jaylen Brown.
“Lost Maxey on a couple of pick-and-rolls where we went under instead of chasing them over, getting them inside three,” said Mazzulla.
Maxey slithered his way through Boston’s new risk-oriented defense with ease, and as they got increasingly more scrambled, the three-point line began to open up, too. The star guard poured in 15 fourth-quarter points, including a 3-of-4 performance from beyond the arc.
“We got to do a better job, especially on one of their better players on the floor,” said Brown. “Got to be more attention to detail on him. We let him kind of play free a little bit. Somebody got to make sure we can't let that happen. I don't know if we were too focused on the offense end, but we can't just let guys come here and just do what they want.”
He and rookie VJ Edgecombe, who churned out a historic 34-point night of his own, were the entire 76ers offense. Nobody else on the roster put up more than 13 points (Dominick Barlow), yet Philly’s backcourt combined for 74.
There were issues in the first half. Glimpses of cracks in the Celtics’ new armor. “It's the transition opportunities in the first half,” Mazzulla noted. Everything contributed to the outcome.
But the stark difference between the third and the fourth was palpable.
“Maybe just got a little comfortable,” said Payton Pritchard. “Gave them life. There's stuff we got to clean up.”
Boston played fast in the third quarter. Even when the 76ers made a shot, they virtually pulled it out of the netting of the basket and had it past half-court by the 23.5-second mark. They did everything in their power to run.
That was the difference. It’s how they won the quarter by 17 points. They were in full control from that point on. Until they weren’t.
“We got to try to find whatever we did in that third quarter for 48 minutes, but obviously, you see what we did wrong in the fourth there, because that's a lot of points,” said Derrick White.
Whether it was an ill-timed foul, missed offensive rebound, or a tough missed shot, the Celtics just couldn’t get their groove back. The same quickness that surged them forward in the third was lagging behind in the final frame.
“I think that's the tough part,” said White. “You want to keep that pace that you had for the first 45 minutes, but you also got to execute, and all those possessions are valuable.”
Maintaining the speed they employed in the third for a full 48 minutes would take a Herculean effort. And perhaps that’s what Boston will need more often than ever this season.
That’s not what happened in the fourth. But it’s certainly a tactic they want to deploy.
“Thought we had a good pace in the third quarter,” said Brown. “We came in from the half running to get up and down. Make or miss, get the ball out, play with pace. Fourth quarter, maybe we slowed down a little bit, maybe we were a little fatigued. First game. But we definitely want to keep our pace in the fourth quarter.
“I'm one of the believers that, fourth quarter, I know everybody thinks you got to slow down and everything, but why? I think you keep playing fast. So, we just turned the ball over too much, I think, in the fourth. That was the difference. If you're playing like that, you still got to take care of the ball.”
One game does not define the Celtics. Especially not the first game of the season. They spent most of the night fighting for their shots, scrambling effectively on defense, and getting used to the new play styles Mazzulla has implemented.
Until the final few minutes of the game, it went relatively smoothly. But that’s usually how it always is until it isn’t.
The third quarter should be replicated. The fourth quarter should be avoided.
Both are teaching points. And the Celtics have 81 more games to learn.