“Derrick White! Derrick White! Derrick White!”
The roar of fans echoed throughout TD Garden on Tuesday night as Derrick White took over the third quarter. Bucket after bucket, chant after chant, he single-handedly picked apart the Cleveland Cavaliers for the entire period.
“It was awesome,” White said of the chants. “Shoutout to the fans always. I’m thankful, and I’m grateful for them always.”
White’s 14-point third-quarter explosion contributed to his 25-point evening in the Boston Celtics’ Game 1 win over Cleveland in Round 2 of the NBA Playoffs. It marked his third game in a row with at least 25 points, tracking back to his 38-point masterclass in Game 4 against the Miami Heat.
“I love the way he’s been playing on both ends of the floor,” said Jayson Tatum. “It just puts a lot of pressure on the defense tonight and last series. We’ve got a lot of different ways to win a game, and it’s tough for the other team to kinda try and figure that out.”
White’s monster scoring nights are products of efficient shooting, too. He shot 9/16 from the field and 7/12 from beyond the three-point arc against the Cavaliers on Tuesday.
He became just the third player in NBA history with 20 threes made over a three-game span in the playoffs. The others? Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Jamal Murray. “Hell of a [group of] players, that’s for sure,” White said.
In fact, his 22 over the course of his last three games ties Murray for the record.
Through six playoff games, White is averaging 22.8 points while shooting 57.5% from the floor and 50.0% from distance. He’s the second-leading scorer on the Celtics, behind only Brown, and attempting a team-high 9.3 threes per contest.
“Just trying to take what the defense gave me,” White said of his pull-up threes. “On one of them, they went under, so that’s why I shot it. Just trying to read the pick-and-roll every time and see what they’re trying to do. We understand they’re going to make adjustments, so just trying to be ready for what it is.”
Photo by Brian Babineau/NBAE via Getty Images
White’s shot-making has been a product of an elite Celtics lineup.
Tatum’s shooting slump has been masked by his constant willingness to make the right play, as defenses send multiple bodies at him, and he just dishes out simple passes.
Brown’s aggressiveness,…
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