During the third quarter on Saturday night in Indiana, things weren’t going well for the Celtics. Jayson Tatum couldn’t play because he got four fouls. Derrick White couldn’t play because he got four fouls. Kristaps Porzingis couldn’t play because he hurt his eye. From the free-throw line, the team couldn’t get the ball through the net either.
Unfortunately for Boston, what was once a 16-point lead was cut all the way down to two points early in the third quarter. It also gave Indiana a wave of energy that made it look like they were about to take over the game.
That’s when Jaylen Brown came into the picture.
Brown was the Celtics’ main player when they needed him the most in this game. because of him, the team never lost the lead in the third quarter and went into the fourth quarter with a three-point lead.
To boost the Celtics, Brown scored nine points in the third, with seven coming in the last 2:35. He scored the last seven points in several different ways, including a free throw, a jump shot, a pull-up jump shot, and a floater to end the quarter.
Thanks to Brown’s hard work during the whole quarter, Boston went into the last frame with an 84-81 lead. But the edge seemed much bigger.
Brown and the Celtics stopped Indiana’s best run to keep the lead. And Tatum could come back to play in the fourth? The game was over.
Tatum scored 15 points and Brown scored 5 in the fourth quarter, which helped the Celtics pull away for a 118-101 win.
Saturday night, Jayson Tatum, a key player, could not be stopped. Even getting fouled a lot, which cut his third-quarter play time to five minutes or less, couldn’t slow him down.
Tatum still scored 38 points, which was the most in the game, thanks to a crazy good night from long range. With eight of his thirteen 3-point shots going in, he set a new season high for most made 3-pointers. Those eight makes were almost as many as his career high.
There were still a lot more of them. Tatum also had 13 rebounds, 12 of which were on defense. That was high for the game. No one else in the game got five more boards than those 13.
Tatum also passed the ball six times during his 37-plus minutes of play.