BOSTON — Slowly but surely, James Harden sucked all the air out of TD Garden on Sunday afternoon. “James has been making shots like that his whole career,” Derrick White said post-game.
What once was a 24-point lead had been whittled down to six. There were 22 seconds left in the game. That’s when Jordan Walsh fouled the LA Clippers star on a three-point attempt. “He's one of the best foul drawers in the league,” said Joe Mazzulla. “I prefer not to have a Flagrant (no Flagrant was called, but it was reviewed for one-, but if you guard him for 33 minutes, you're gonna foul him two or three times.”
One by one, Harden sank all three free throws, and the thousands of Boston Celtics fans in attendance slowly began to hold their breath. A Jaylen Brown dunk brought Boston’s lead back out to five, but immediately after, Harden ran down the floor and sank a triple in White’s face.
Two-point ball game.
White did his job. He sank two free throws after an intentional foul by LA. But like clockwork, Harden ran down the floor again and nailed another three.
One-point ball game.
On two straight trips, White and Brown were forced to give their best effort at contesting Harden, but with his step-back, doing so without fouling was a near impossibility. Walsh just learned that the hard way.
Two Payton Pritchard free throws brought the game to its final play with 2.0 seconds left on the clock.
Kris Dunn threw a pass that prime Tom Brady would be proud of to Ivica Zubac, who was waiting at the opposite charity stripe, guarded by White. In a flash, Harden sprinted up the floor, and Zubac found him for an open three.
“Just hoping he missed,” White said. “He hadn’t been missing, but…”
Zubac’s pass triggered a clear reaction from the Boston crowd: Horror. A simultaneous gasp rang throughout TD Garden, almost as if to say, ‘Oh no, it’s happening.’ And as the ball flew through the air toward the rim, silence ensued throughout the building.
Front rim. Celtics win.
The crowd didn’t even cheer. Not right away. Instead, a moment full of shock, relief, and even a bit of disappointment was let out. Almost as if a small part of the basketball fan inside everyone, even those wearing green, wanted to see the shot go down.
It didn’t. Instead, the Celtics walked away with their seventh win of the season. A victory that almost wasn’t, thanks to a stretch of Harden heroics.
But Harden only had a chance to play Superman because of the third quarter.
With 9:29 to go in the third, White drove past John Collins for a layup, giving the Celtics a 24-point lead at 76-52. By the time the quarter came to a close, the score was 90-85.
The Clippers went on a 33-14 run. And it all started with a three-second violation.
Right after White made that shot against Collins, Pritchard got called for a defensive three-second violation. Harden made the technical free throw. At the moment, it seemed like nothing more than a one-off. A typical in-game mistake. But it was the start of a massive shift in momentum.
“We put them to the free-throw line, which then slows the pace down, and then they can have their set defense,” Pritchard said. “Stuff like that.”
LA shot 12 free throws in the third quarter, making 11 of them.
“I think a lot of fouls kind of killed our offensive rhythm, and then they were getting a lot of second-chance points as well,” said White.
Snagging three offensive rebounds in the third, the Clippers shot 4-of-4 on second-chance opportunities, scoring 12 points.
“They kind of converted on some of our misses, and some of those came for me, just at the rim,” said Brown. “I missed a few layups. I missed a bunch of layups tonight at the rim, and they were able to convert in that third quarter. And I think that kind of got them going, you know, just shots that I got to make or go up a little bit stronger.”
Boston shot just 4-of-8 in the restricted area in the third quarter, including a miss from Brown. They also shot just 6-of-12 in the paint as a whole in the third.
LA only scored five fast-break points in the third, but whenever Boston missed a shot, it prevented them from setting up their defensive structure. The Clippers made them pay.
Throughout the course of the entire game, the Celtics only shot 17-of-32 in the restricted area.
Free throws, second-chance opportunities, and missed layups. Whatever momentum Boston built in the first half was erased by simple mistakes.
Yet once the fourth came around, LA’s changes were the difference-maker.
“They put James Harden back in,” Mazzulla said when asked about what turned the tide.
Through the first few minutes of the fourth, Boston rebuilt its lead. They extended their five-point lead back out to eight. But when Harden reentered the contest, he went nuclear.
In the final 7:41, Harden scored 18 points. He shot 5-of-8 from the floor and 3-of-4 from deep, draining all five of his free-throw attempts.
“You tip your cap to Harden,” said Pritchard. “He started hitting some tough shots and stuff like that.”
But Harden’s mere presence on the court wasn’t the only reason the Celtics struggled to contain LA’s offensive attack.
“They went to more of a shooting lineup, to where you couldn't really double from anywhere,” said Mazzulla. “And he [Harden] made some plays, right? And then, like I said, we fouled him on a three-point play, and we fouled him driving to the basket. And so, it's those situational ones. But they did a good job going to a particular offensive lineup, which gave them great spacing, and then he was able to create plays for himself. And at that point, you have to decide with the shooting that they have out there.”
Bogdan Bogdanovic played the entire fourth (outside of one play at the end of the game, so he played 11:59). Brook Lopez and Nicolas Batum both got some minutes. Ty Lue wanted guys on the floor who could shoot the ball.
The Celtics spent much of the first half pressuring Harden in the backcourt (Walsh led the charge) and sending two at him in the pick-and-roll. He would dump a pass to Zubac in the paint, but Boston’s corner defender would be right there to wreak havoc. Double-teams were plentiful.
Adding three-point shooting to the lineup made that harder, forcing the Celtics to stray from their defensive game plan. “We had a game plan, and they switched it up,” said Pritchard.
LA worked tirelessly to flip the game on its head, and by the time the final buzzer sounded, they succeeded. They just came up one shot short.
But in the middle of the chaos, as a horde of bumps and bruises caused the Celtics’ lead to slip through their fingers, they continued to battle. They couldn’t stop the Clippers’ momentum altogether, but they slowed it down.
That was enough.
“You gotta understand, it's a game of runs,” said White. “Teams are good and, when those times happen, you just gotta try to find a way to change momentum.”
“Whether it's an offensive rebound.”
With 5:03 left in the fourth, Neemias Queta failed to convert on two shots in the paint. He got the ball back both times and finally finished the job with an and-one. As he screamed in triumph, TD Garden screamed with him.
“Whether it's just getting a stop and getting a steal.”
With 9:36 left in the fourth, Brown jumped a pass from Dunn, dashed up the floor, and got an and-one.
Anyway you can change momentum of just making a hustle play, whatever it might be, you just got to try to find that play. Know that there's a lot of time, it's a game of runs, and just keep trusting it.”
With 11:02 in the fourth, the Clippers had a chance to run. Baylor Scheierman was caught with his shoe off, and LA pushed the ball up the floor after a missed three by Brown.
Kobe Sanders drove into Scheierman, who looked like he was about to foul, as his shoe was barely halfway on his foot. Instead, White stepped in front of a sprinting Batum and drew a charge.
“I think we just made some plays down the stretch,” said Brown. I think our guys are getting comfortable in those moments. There [are] some benefits, I guess, to playing a bunch of closed games, that you get some more experience. Get battle-tested a little bit.”
Small plays. Little, hustle-first moments. Without any of those individual plays, the Celtics may not have won. For every soul-crushing Harden three late in the fourth, there was a hustle play by Boston.
Queta’s offensive rebound. Brown’s steal. White’s drawn charge. That’s how the Celtics pushed through the Clippers' second-half surge. Harden's heroics forced Boston to grind out a victory.
And that’s how they’ll have to win all season.