Getty Celtics star Jaylen Brown
If there is one thing we have seen throughout the course of this postseason, it’s that there is scarcely a lead in the NBA that can be termed “safe.” The playoffs are littered with teams that have blown leads of 15 points or more, sometimes late in the game, and we nearly had a historic comeback in the first round when the Clippers coughed up a 31-point lead to the Mavs, only to eventually pull out the win.
So, when Pacers coach Rick Carlisle found his team down by 13 points to start the fourth quarter against Boston, it was a head-scratcher to find that he had inserted forward Doug McDermott into the game. McDermott had not played since May 17, and had garnered only three minutes in that appearance. McDermott was in for all 12 minutes of the fourth quarter.
Carlisle did not stop there. He played Isaiah Jackson for 10 minutes. He played Jalen Smith for seven minutes. He played Jarace Walker for five.
The Pacers, who were without the injured Tyrese Haliburton (hamstring), went on to lose Game 2 and fall into an 0-2 hole.
But again, this was not a 30-point blowout. For the Celtics’ Jaylen Brown, this was … weird.
“It was a little surprising,” Brown said. “I don’t know what the reasoning behind that was, but we focused on winning the game. I think that’s what our focus was. But yeah, that definitely was a little weird.”
Rick Carlisle Explains His Reasons
Maybe Carlisle will prove to be a genius, especially if he saw something he liked from McDermott or the rest of the meager minutes crew. Perhaps he goes to Smith or Walker when the series returns to Indiana and gets a key performance from them.
That was his goal, Carlisle explained after Game 2. He said he was not waving the white flag on the game, he was hoping that his energetic bench guys could turn things around.
“To look at some guys that I thought needed a look,” Carlisle said, via the Indy Star. “McDermott went in there and played well. Isaiah Jackson brought a lot of fight to the game. Jalen Smith hasn’t had much of an opportunity to play in the playoffs, so I wanted to see where he was at.”
If it looked like the Pacers had folded their hand, Carlisle insisted it was not that. “We weren’t giving up, but it was an opportunity to get some energetic fresh guys in there to fight. They did some good things,” he said.
Celtics’ Jaylen Brown Shrugs off All-NBA Snub
As for Brown, he tallied a very fruitful 37 minutes of his own, posting 40 points on 14-for-27 shooting from the field. He was a much-needed offensive anchor while Jayson Tatum continued his struggles, going 9-for-20 from the field but only 1-for-7 from the 3-point line with 23 points.
Brown insisted his performance on Thursday night was a matter of being within sniffing distance of the NBA Finals, a place to which he has visited only once in his career. Still, there was speculation that after a standout season, Brown felt disrespected for having not been named to any of the three All-NBA teams.
“I mean, we’re two games from the Finals, so honestly I don’t got the time to give a sh**,” Brown said.