Boston Celtics: 3 takeaways from Game 1 vs. Pacers

1. Defense

How could there be any other main takeaway after a game that ends with the winning team scoring a measly 84 points? Defense was at a premium, offense was hard to find and fans of gritty basketball were left satisfied.

Both defenses were flat out impressive in Game 1. Indiana deserves a heap of praise for the way it shut down Boston’s best scorers. For all the starters, Jayson Tatum was the sole player to shoot over 50 percent from the field. Guys known for their efficient brand of offensive basketball like Irving and Horford had trouble finding the bottom of the net with Pacers defenders in their faces.

In an incredibly impressive showing, Boston managed to hold a 5-seed in the playoffs to just 74 points, and that’s with about four minutes of garbage time at the end when head coach Brad Stevens put in the out-of-rotation guys.

Sure, of all the teams in the playoffs, Indiana may have the largest personnel issues when it comes to creating offense in the half-court. That doesn’t diminish the fact that the Celtics held a team that had been prepping to play them since their matchup was locked in around late March to a staggering 37.2 points below the league average.

Individually, Kyrie Irving looked engaged and active all night on the defensive end. Jaylen Brown guarded Bojan Bogdanovic for the vast majority of his minutes, and did an excellent job holding the Pacers’ best scorer to an inefficient 12 points on 4-of-11 shooting from the field.

Nobody can expect the rest of the series to have quite this level of defensive domination, but with a combined field goal percentage of 34.5, the tone has been set for the rest of the series.