The Boston Celtics are up 2-0 in the Eastern Conference finals after a 126-110 win over the Indiana Pacers in Game 2 on Thursday night. Jaylen Brown scored a game-high 40 points and Boston led for most of the game after a big run to start the second quarter. Jayson Tatum came alive in the second half to add 23 points for Boston. For the Pacers, they head back to Indiana with a 2-0 series deficit and with an injured point guard.
Pacers All-Star Tyrese Haliburton was ruled out of Game 2 in the second half and is dealing with a hamstring injury. Haliburton had 10 points and eight assists in 27 minutes before exiting. Pascal Siakam had a team-high 28 points for the Pacers on 13-of-17 shooting. Indiana led after the first quarter but went on a lengthy scoring drought that saw the Celtics score 20 unanswered points.
The Celtics are two wins away from their second NBA Finals trip in three seasons, while the Pacers are in familiar territory. Indiana lost its first two games on the road against the Knicks in the second round of these playoffs before taking four of the final five to oust New York. Game 3 is set for Saturday night at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, where the Pacers have not lost in this postseason.
Here are some key takeaways from the game:
Brown says big night not inspired by All-NBA snub
Jaylen Brown saved the Celtics in Game 1 with the biggest shot of his career, and followed it up with one of his best playoff performances ever. It came one day after he was fell just short of making the All-NBA Teams, which Boston guard Derrick White called a "big-time snub."
Brown, though, said he drew no extra motivation from the voting results. "We're two games from the finals so honestly I don't have the time to give a f---," Brown said post-game.
Less than a minute into the game, Brown knocked down a 3-pointer after a Celtics offensive rebound, and never looked back. He finished with 40 points on 14-of-27 shooting from the field to tie his playoff-career high and his own mark for the second-highest scoring game by a Celtic in Eastern Conference finals history.
Playing the porous Pacers certainly helps, but this is a major bounce back showing from Brown, who was terrible in this round last season against the Miami Heat. He averaged just 19 points per game and shot 41.8% from the field, which was a major reason the Celtics were upset by the No. 8 seed. Through two games of this series he's put up 66 points on 51.1% shooting and is halfway to his point total for the entire series versus Miami.
Celtics' offense gets on track in second half
The Celtics have been one of the league's top offensive teams all season long, and they showed why in the second half with a dominant 24 minutes of basketball in which they punished the Pacers' lack of rim protection, got to the free-throw line and caught fire from behind the arc.
They shot 26-of-40 from the field, including 9-of-19 from downtown, and turned it over just three times. While the Celtics can be prone to lackadaisical stretches where they stand around and get sloppy with the ball, we saw none of that after the break. A two-minute stretch in the fourth quarter, after they had already built a 17-point lead, was their longest scoring drought of the half.
The Pacers actually scored 59 points on 53.5% shooting themselves in the second half and still got outscored by 10 points during that stretch.
Haliburton leaves with hamstring injury
No one thought much of Tyrese Haliburton checking out of the game late in the third quarter, but when he still hadn't returned by the middle of the fourth, everyone started asking questions. As it turned out, he left with left hamstring soreness. That is the same hamstring that has been bothering him since January.
It appears he tweaked the hamstring on a rather innocuous play in the third when he was trying to guard Jayson Tatum.
Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle said that Haliburton's hamstring was bothering him at halftime, but his star point guard wanted to give it a go in the second half.
"He gave it a shot and gave it all the effort that he could," Carlisle said. "It wasn't going well. So the trainers determined that he needed to go to the back and get worked on."
It's too early to know Haliburton's status for Game 3 in Indianapolis on Saturday, but even if he plays this is bad news for the Pacers. He tried to play through the injury at the end of the regular season and was much less effective than he was early in the season. The Pacers are already in trouble down 2-0, and it's going to be extremely difficult for them to pull off a comeback if Haliburton is not at his best.
