That went insanely hard.
I never knew how much I needed the Celtics to start hacking Andre Drummond to extend their 32-point lead in the fourth quarter. I never knew how much I needed to relentlessly scoreboard-watch on a Tuesday night, begging the Charlotte Hornets to score some points and for the Brooklyn Nets to get it together… but not too together.
And I never knew I’d be begging for Svi Mykhailiuk and Co. to hang onto a 23-point lead to give the Celtics a chance at the knockout round of the In-Season Tournament. That was so, totally awesome, and the Celtics completed step one of their quest for the NBA Cup. If all of that sounds like a dead language from ancient Mesopotamia, let me quickly run you through the basics.
In order to clinch Group C, the Celtics needed to beat the Bulls by 23 or more (check), while the Brooklyn Nets needed to win by eight fewer points than the Celtics won by (check). Had the Nets lost, the Orlando Magic would have won the head-to-head tiebreaker with Boston. But since the Nets hold the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Magic, their win triggered the second-level tiebreaker: point differential, which the Celtics own.
If that still sounds Mesopotamian (or just don’t care), the Celtics are into the bracket. Time to pop the champagne, so let’s celebrate by watching this Sam Hauser put-back dunk:
Tuesday night was possibly my favorite night of regular season basketball ever. As always, the Celtics came in with one job: win the game. But last night specifically, that job came with like twenty other optional side quests, and by the fourth quarter the Celtics were basically playing a different sport.
Because of various wild-card scenarios, the Celtics were in effect playing against four teams at once. They needed to beat the Bulls by 23, but also the Knicks by 18 and the Nets by eight. And they also needed the Nets to win, so they were somehow playing the Raptors, too. What continent am I on right now?
I was absolutely locked in for it, and apparently so was everybody else. It brought out a weird side of the NBA I didn’t even know was there, and I was so here for sweating out 23-point blowouts on a Tuesday in November. Joe Mazzulla was ordering his team to intentionally foul Drummond up 30 with seven minutes left, and Bulls head coach Billy Donovan was furious.
That kind of behavior gets you fired if you coach high school basketball, but is apparently encouraged one night a year in the NBA. The Bulls clearly…
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