On Saturday evening, the Boston Celtics won a thrilling contest at home vs the Toronto Raptors courtesy of a Jayson Tatum game winning three in overtime. While it wasn’t necessarily an encouraging sign that the Celtics required an extra frame to knock off one of the league’s worst teams, they still ultimately got the job done and guaranteed that Tatum will continue to take highly contested fadeaway threes in clutch situations to come.
A large part of the reason why the Raptors were able to hang in this game was the play of center Jakob Poetl, who finished the game with a monster double double of 35 points and 12 rebounds, and after the contest, Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla had some high praise for the former San Antonio Spur.
“Jakob Poeltl is one of the best guys in the league. He’s a bear. You can’t f****** guard him,” said Mazzulla at his post game press conference, per Daniel Donabedian of ClutchPoints.
Fans would be forgiven for thinking that Poetl was one of the best big men in the NBA after watching what he did to the Celtics on Saturday evening, thoroughly exposing Boston’s lack of depth at the center position with Kristaps Porzingis currently out of the lineup for an extended period of time due to injury.
Cause for concern for the Celtics?
While they’re winning games at a solid clip, the Celtics haven’t looked quite as dominant so far in 2024-25 as they did throughout the 2023-24 season, already having dropped two home games when they didn’t lose their first until January last year.
The Celtics have also played several games right down to the wire recently against inferior opponents, including dropping a shocking result to the Atlanta Hawks without Trae Young and several other players last week at home.
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Part of the culprit could be a lack of urgency to prove themselves after already having done so on the game’s biggest stage a year ago, as well as the fact that Porzingis is out of the lineup due to injury. It should also be noted that point guard Jrue Holiday missed the game on Saturday vs the Raptors.
Still, Boston fans were likely hoping to see a bit more of a dominant start from their squad considering the immense talent advantage that they hold over the rest of the league.
The Celtics will next take the floor on Tuesday evening against the undefeated Cleveland Cavaliers.
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