TORONTO — Mitchell Robinson couldn’t help himself.
The Celtics center chirped both Derrick White and Neemias Queta during their postgame scrums after the Celtics erased a 22-point deficit to win their fifth straight game, a 98-93 victory over the Toronto Raptors.
“You the fucking man!” he yelled to White after his 19-point, 4-block performance.
“Way to knock down those free throws,” he said to Queta after the Portuguese big man hit two free throws with 15 seconds to spare, giving the Celtics a three-point
lead.
After a week-long road trip, the Celtics’ plane heading back to Boston was delayed, but locker-room vibes remained exceptionally high.
Players are usually quick to head out after the last game of a long road trip, but the flight delay kept nearly everyone in their lockers, bantering for far longer than normal.
Wednesday’s win, after all, was a full-team effort worth celebrating. Ron Harper Jr. blasted Olivia Dean on the aux. Robinson requested the team play some country music. Payton Pritchard threw out song requests.
“He’s the guy,” Queta said, referring to Harper Jr.’s DJing.
In a way, it was only fitting that Harper, one of just a handful of players who never checked into the ball game, was directing the postgame jam sesh.
“Even the guys that weren’t playing just gave us a lift, energy-wise,” Joe Mazzulla said after the game.
The Celtics found a way to win every night
The Celtics went 4-0 on the trip, beating the Charlotte Hornets, Milwaukee Bucks, Philadelphia 76ers, and the Raptors. After dropping their Opening Day game against the Detroit Pistons, they have won 9 of their last 10 games. They have the league’s best net rating. And they’re playing 11 guys every night, leaning on as much depth as they can.
Less than 24 hours after blowing out the 76ers, they found themselves on the other side of a blowout, in danger of ending the trip on a sour note.
“We talked about the four-game road trip, and we kind of talked about it before the game,” Jayson Tatum said. “Last night was a good win against a really good team, and last night wouldn’t mean anything — because it was easy to get up for a game like yesterday. Can we muster up some energy to will ourselves to a victory today?”
The quick turnaround meant an 8 pm game followed by a 7 pm tip, with a border crossing in between. And while Tuesday’s game against the 76ers may have had a playoff atmosphere, Wednesday’s was against a .500 team missing its two best players in Scottie Barnes and Kawhi Leonard.
“Obviously anybody could get up for a game like yesterday,” White said. ”That’s what you dream about, stuff like that, especially the atmosphere and the energy around the building. But then you come on the road, and Toronto is a really good team. Obviously they’re missing a lot of players, but they’ve done a lot of great things in the league, so it’s kind of a little letdown. And so that’s where you’ve got to find that extra gear.”
Tatum noted that the team got to their Toronto hotel at 3 a.m.
“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tired today,” he said.
But, that made the outcome of Wednesday’s game all the more important.
“If you want to be great, these are games that you have to [win],” he said.
The Celtics survived an early Raptors onslaught
The Raptors shot 10-for-18 from three in the first quarter and led by as many as 22 in the second.
“Anytime they hit 10 threes in a quarter, it seems like it’s going to be a long night,” White said. “But honestly, we were just kind of a step behind.”
Mazzulla said the game turned in the second quarter, as the Celtics chipped away at the deficit to seven before halftime. The Celtics embarked on a 17-2 run, of which Jayson Tatum scored and assisted on 14 points.
“We didn’t win the game in the fourth quarter. We won the game in the middle of the second quarter when we cut it to seven,” Mazzulla said. “It’s a 22-point game. It could go either way. You can kind of mail it in and just say, ‘Second night of a back-to-back, blah, blah, blah.'”
Tatum finished with 24 points, 8 assists, 7 rebounds, and 2 blocks. White added 19 points, 7 assists, and 4 blocks.
And Queta, who led the game with 13 rebounds, went out of his way to shout out the small plays that don’t show up in a box score.
“A lot of guys are making energy plays that galvanize your teammates, and I think we kind of fed off each other,” Queta said. “I think that’s something we need to do more, and it will get us over the hump on those nights.”
Defense became the name of the game; Boston held Toronto to 19 points in the third quarter and 13 in the fourth.
“I thought all five guys were connected defensively,” Mazzulla said. “We were executing our coverages, forced the type of shots that we wanted them to shoot. Guys got rebounds. So I thought it was a connected defensive effort by our guys, particularly in the second half.”
Mazzulla also praised Queta for his all-around impact on the ballgame.
“Those two big free throws that he hit down the stretch, catching the ball in the seam, making plays,” Mazzulla said. “Defensively, he just lifts us to another level with the rim protection.”
The Celtics could have simply accepted they didn’t have it on Wednesday night.
Instead, they dug deep and finished a successful road trip on top.
“We had every excuse in the world, and people would be like, ‘Oh, it was a big game,’ whatever,” White said. “But it’s just the DNA. We put that Celtics uniform on and go out there and win. And so every person that came in there — we might not have had it at the beginning of the game, but we just found a way to find something and give everything we’ve got.”
