On Tuesday night the (16-5) Boston Celtics welcomed the (13-10) Cleveland Cavaliers to Boston off an unusual 3 days without a game for the Celtics. Boston headed into this one at full strength with all 5 regular starters while Cleveland was on the second night of a back to back and missing a few key pieces. Early on it looked like the rest vs. rust debate was going to be an issue for the Celtics but Jaylen Brown kept them in the game early.
First Quarter
The first quarter was an abysmal one for the Celtics, it was as bad as they’ve looked at home all season. They were missing shots making bad passes and failing to rotate on defense. The only Celtic doing anything early on was Jaylen Brown as he racked up 10 of Boston’s first twelve points. Outside of Brown the Celtics were 0-8 shooting to start the game and were a mess defensively. However things started to turn at the end of the quarter as the defensive intensity picked up and the rest of the offense started to hit shots ending the quarter only trailing 31-21 after what felt like a 20 point deficit was possible.
Second Quarter
The second quarter was a different story for the Celtics as Derrick White picked up right where he left off on Friday night getting Boston back into this one. White had 10 points 1 block and 1 steal in the first 4 minutes of the second and cut the Cleveland lead to two with a trio of three pointers in a row. After trailing 29-15 Boston would come back to tie the game with a pair of Brown free throws with 3:52 to go in the half. A Donovan Mitchell technical late in the quarter would give Jayson Tatum a free throw to tie the game on a controversial out of bounds call that Mitchell was upset about. Cleveland would escape the first half with a very narrow 1 point lead after leading by double digits for most of the half, heading into the locker room leading 60-59.
