Derrick White entered this season with the Celtics with a stronger sense of confidence. Given a summer to breathe after his mid-season arrival, he made his shot sharper and admittedly felt more settled in during his first training camp.
Then came his entry into the starting lineup due to the absence of Robert Williams. And given the increased opportunity, White has seized it. Already, it’s paying dividends for the Celtics.
On a night when the Celtics weren’t sharp on the defensive end, when Jaylen Brown couldn’t seem to find his shot and they struggled to put away the feisty Magic, it was White who made the final difference. Jayson Tatum’s 40 points put the C’s in position before White hit a switch late to push the Celtics to a 126-120 victory in Orlando.
White, in his best all-around game for the Celtics since being acquired at the trade deadline last February, scored 27 points and made game-changing plays on both ends of the court down the stretch as the C’s became the first team in the NBA to start the season 3-0.
With Brown struggling offensively for much of the night – starting the game 1-for-9 from the field before finishing with just 12 points – Tatum needed another co-star and White proved to be ready for the task, another example of the Celtics’ improved depth from a year ago that makes them serious championship threats.
“I’ve been feeling comfortable this whole training camp, this whole preseason, the whole first couple games,” White told reporters in Orlando. “I think a big thing this summer was just confidence from me and that’s just what I was focusing on and doing a lot of different things to get back to that way, so I felt good out there and found a way to get a win.”
White made five 3-pointers – including four in the first half – as the Celtics’ offense continued to hum at a ridiculous pace with 19 triples. But the veteran guard’s greatest impact came in the closing moments. The Celtics led by two with less than four minutes to go when White – aided by a Tatum screen – found a lane to the hoop and converted a strong and-one to put the C’s up five.
Moments later, White had his best sequence of the game. The C’s led three with just over two minutes left when Tatum found him beyond the arc. White saw another lane to the hoop and flushed a two-handed dunk over No. 1 pick Paolo Banchero to restore the Celtics’ lead to five. On the ensuing Magic possession, he took a charge from a driving Cole Anthony, which was upheld after Orlando challenged the play.
On the Celtics’ next possession, Tatum drilled a side-step 3-pointer to give the Celtics an eight-point lead, more than enough cushion for them to ultimately hold off a young and feisty Magic squad.
This must have been the version of White that Brad Stevens envisioned when he traded a package that included a first-round pick and future first-round pick swap to the Spurs at the deadline last season. White has been one of the Celtics’ best defenders since he joined them, but now that he’s surrounding Tatum and Brown in the starting lineup, he’s also adding a new dimension to the offense with his shot-making ability with plenty of open looks. His role may change based on how a game evolves and what it demands, but whatever it is, he’s proving he can be a valuable difference-maker who can do plenty of things for a team with championship aspirations.
On Saturday, it demanded that he needed to score, and he didn’t disappoint.
“I was getting good looks,” White told reporters. “I was just playing off of the guys and you make a couple, you just try to get more and more involved in the offense. The coaching staff always tells me to be aggressive and some games will happen more than others, and just have to take advantage of when that comes.”
It looked like the C’s would never separate from the Magic. Tatum erupted for 15 points in the opening minutes of the first quarter, but despite the Celtics’ shot-making – they made 14 3-pointers in the first half, which was a franchise record – the Magic seemed to match them for every point.
The C’s had to know they needed to pick up their defensive intensity after giving up 68 points in the first half to the Magic, and it looked like they might pull away at the start of the second when Tatum and Brown fueled a 10-3 run out of the locker room.
But the Magic kept pushing back as they took advantage of their size and athleticism against a Celtics front line that was missing Williams and Al Horford, who was out with low back stiffness. They went on a 16-5 third-quarter run to take the lead, and never went away until the final minutes.
The Celtics have now given up 113.7 points per game through their first three games, and though they’re playing smaller and faster, it’s obviously a far cry from their league-leading defense that led them to the NBA Finals.
“We have to give them some credit. They played with confidence, they made shots, but we gotta be better,” Tatum told NBC Sports Boston. “One-hundred and 20 points, 100-plus points in the first game, that’s just not who we are. I mean, it’s a back-to-back, it’s early, but if we’re trying to get back to where we want to be, we have to play way better than this. It shouldn’t take the back and forth for us to play the right way on both ends.
“We just have to start better and just play together, way better than we did this game.”
