The Boston Celtics overcame the Cleveland Cavaliers in a tense shootout, 120-113

The Celtics are still the best team in the Eastern Conference, even though they didn’t win the NBA’s first In-Season Tournament. It looked like they were going to remind the league of that point on Tuesday night when they played the playoff-hopeful Cleveland Cavaliers. After getting off to a slow start, the Celtics outshot Cleveland’s lively offense and controlled the Cavaliers in the last few minutes, winning 120–113.

Kristaps Porzingis, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and Kristaps Porzingis scored 71 points and made all 22 free throws. Derrick White and Jrue Holiday made eight three-pointers and played tough defense that seemed to get better as the game went on. Donovan Mitchell scored 29 points, but he only scored two in the last 15 minutes. Darius Garland, who played with Mitchell in the backcourt, scored 26 points.

It would be too mild to say that the Celtics looked like they were in a fog at the start of this game. The Cavaliers went on a 15-2 run after Brown scored the first basket of the game, putting Boston in a big hole very quickly.

That seemed like they were always two steps ahead of the Celtics’ defense as they smashed through it. It took more than six minutes of playtime before any Celtic player other than Brown scored. Porzingis scored two free throws, which made him the first Celtic player to score.

The Celtics were able to stay in the game thanks to Brown’s good start until his teammates woke up. Payton Pritchard made a three-pointer, becoming the second Celtic to make a field goal. He had already scored 10 of the team’s first 12 points.

From there, it looked like the basket’s lid fell off, and after a terrible start, Boston was only 10 points behind going into the second quarter, 31-21.

Pritchard added a crazy energy to the game tonight that the Celtics needed. He scored his first basket with Brown in the first quarter and then made his second three-pointer of the night early in the second. His high-energy style of play worked well against a Cleveland backcourt that wasn’t as big as him and couldn’t take advantage of it. Throughout tonight’s eight-minute first half, he scored six points, passed the ball twice, stole two balls, and stopped a shot.

Tatum, who started to score more often in the second quarter, was also a part of Boston’s run. He got going downhill into the teeth of the Cleveland defense, which led to two free throws and a strong dunk early in the quarter. Their defense was very good at drawing fouls, which helped them win.

At halftime, Boston had 17 free throws while the Cavaliers only had two. Even though the Cavaliers kept scoring, their lead shrank, and the Celtics were only behind by one point at halfway, 60–59.

Mitchell, not Tatum or Brown, scored the most points in the game. By the middle of the third quarter, the 27-year-old combo guard had 27 points, 6 rebounds, and 3 assists thanks to Boston’s unusually slow perimeter defense.

As the third quarter went on, though, the Celtics took a closer look at him, and he played much less well for the rest of the game. He only scored two points the rest of the way, which changed the game’s outcome in a big way.

In the second half, Cleveland went on another big run, beating the Celtics 13-2 by the middle of the third quarter thanks to Mitchell’s play and busy offense. Up until this point, the Cavaliers had a big lead in three-pointers for the night.

But as the third quarter came to a close, Boston’s shooters gained confidence, undoing the progress Cleveland had made in the first few minutes. With a 94-92 lead going into the fourth quarter, Boston made seven three-pointers in the last six minutes of the quarter to hold off an energized Cleveland attack.

This game had a lot of energy and was probably one of the best-scoring battles of the year. As the fourth quarter started, it looked like it was going to end spectacularly. As time ran out, neither team was able to win more than one possession on the other. There was a lot of big-time shooting and tough defense that was almost too much to handle.

It was important for the Celtics not to have a close game, though. Boston’s 23rd and 24th free throws were made by Porzingis. They gave the Celtics their first two-point lead of the fourth quarter, 110-106, with just over four minutes left in regulation.

Tatum then made his second three-pointer of the game, a step-back shot that made the score seven points to one. In the next few minutes, the Celtics showed some clutch time swagger. White’s three-pointer with 2:30 left to play put the finishing touches on the game for the Cavaliers, making it 10–10.

Next, the Celtics will feel like they’ve been here before when they play the Cavaliers at the TD Garden for the second straight game this Thursday at 7:30 PM on NBA TV.