BOSTON – Just before tipping off Game 81 of the regular season Sunday night, the Boston Celtics learned that they had officially locked up fourth place in the Eastern Conference thanks to a loss by the fifth-place Indiana Pacers. That gave Boston the option to rest its top rotation players against the Orlando Magic; however, as a group, the C's felt that it would be beneficial to experience one last run together in preparation for the Playoffs. So, they rolled out with the whole crew at TD Garden.
Despite falling to the Magic, who locked up a playoff berth of their own with a 116-108 win, the C’s felt that they profited from having all of their starters and top bench players on the floor, as it allowed them to continue to build rhythm together before embarking on the postseason grind next weekend.
“I think it is important,” Al Horford, who logged 18 points, four rebounds, seven assists and two steals during 26 minutes of action, said of the decision to play all of the top rotation guys. “Tonight, and this whole week has been good for us. We’ve been challenged, and I feel like our team has answered and played at a high level like we needed to. Tonight was just another night I felt like we played really well, but we just came up short.”
Boston trailed by as many as 14 points early in the fourth quarter until Kyrie Irving and Jaylen Brown jumpstarted a 13-0 run, cutting its deficit down to one before tying it up a few minutes later. The initial plan was to have Irving sit out for the majority of the final frame like the rest of the starters, but Stevens felt the intensity that the All-Star point guard was bringing to the game was valuable and provided something that the team could build off of.
Irving wound up playing all but two minutes of the fourth quarter, which is when he scored 11 of his team-high 23 points.
“I would’ve taken Kyrie out a little bit earlier,” Stevens admitted, “but sometimes you can build a little bit of something there when you come back from down 14 and it’s ten minutes left and you come back and tie it and have a chance to take the lead on a couple of occasions.”
Irving said that fourth quarter was a great chance “to prove to ourselves that we're in any game, at any point. (Down) 14 points with nine minutes left on the clock, we're still in great shape. So, go out there and compete and just leave it all out there.
“We had some chances to take the lead, but a few turnovers, a few effort plays on their end that they made (cost us), and they played desperate basketball the whole entire game to earn their win and that's just the result of it.”
Despite the game having no implication on the final standings, the Celtics played as if it had meaning. That’s because to them, it did.
“We were definitely trying to win the game,” said Gordon Hayward, who played 38 minutes including every second of the fourth quarter. “We want to go into the playoffs playing our best basketball. They hit some tough shots tonight. You could tell they’re playing for something, and credit to them – they played well.”
A couple of Boston’s players got dinged up during the effort, as Jayson Tatum left midway through the first quarter with a left shin contusion and Marcus Smart departed midway through the third frame with a left oblique contusion. However, Stevens relayed from the team’s medical staff that neither injury appears to be serious.
“We’ve got a couple of days where we can hopefully get them back, ready, and it will be fine,” Hayward said of his banged-up teammates.
Stevens says that the top seven or eight rotation players will play a lot less, if at all, during Tuesday night’s regular-season finale in Washington D.C. That should give them all the rest they need heading into the postseason.
“Any days of rest are great,” said Irving, whose C's have won five of their last seven games. “They're always peaceful, but we know what we're doing that for. The preparation starts now.”
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