The TD Garden crowd was in full throat as the Celtics went full throttle to beat Heat in playoff opener - The Boston Globe (2024)

Jayson Tatum was magnificent in this installment of his ongoing quest for a championship, with his first career playoff triple-double (23 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists) frustrating the Heat enough that they resorted to trying to take him down in the final minutes. Tatum wasn’t having it, bouncing quickly off the floor after getting undercut by Miami’s Caleb Martin, a hard fall on his hip and head concerning enough for Tatum’s fellow championship-seeking Jay, Jaylen Brown, to make Martin immediately aware of his displeasure. But the ensuing scrum dissolved as quickly as it formed, and Tatum calmly walked to the other end of the court to score the final 2 points of the game with two free throws.

Knockout complete.

For one game, at least.

But as these Celtics know, a record-setting regular season followed by an easy opening playoff win will only be remembered fondly if this effort ends with the franchise’s 18th banner.

“We came out the right way, the first one to punch them and we got off to a good start,” center Kristaps Porzingis said. “From that point on we kept it going.”

Did they ever. Twenty-two 3-pointers, with seven of the eight players who saw action hitting multiple threes, leaving only Tatum, who hit one, on the outside. Forty-four rebounds, 34 of them on the defensive end, shutting Miami out of so many second chances. With snappy ball movement, active hands, and relentless drive, the Celtics reduced the Heat to the role of speed bump, crushed amid the cacophony of a TD Garden experience in full-throated glory.

The seats filled with many varieties of green-dyed fans, their shouts and cheers rising as the team was introduced, a routine done with the aid of shamrock-based towers spurting ribbons of flame toward the rafters.

The energy carried directly into the game, and the crescendo reached its peak as the final seconds of the third quarter ticked away. It was a shot by guard Derrick White that really told the story of basketball beauty. No wonder he couldn’t help but take a moment to appreciate it.

White was standing just beyond the 3-point arc when he corralled a jump ball and quickly let it fly, right hand bending beautifully in the follow-through, feet landing softly on the parquet. For a moment, just an instant really, his 6-foot-4-inch frame froze, eyes watching the ball all the way through the net. He then turned his head toward the team’s bench, teammates running by and slapping him in congratulations. Together they jogged toward their seats, the Heat having called a timeout to look for something, anything, to slow down the roaring home team.

The lead had ballooned to 32 points.

“It was important how the third quarter went for us,” Porzingis said. “I think that was a big key for us. We can find moments in that fourth where we weren’t perfect, we kind of maybe took our foot off the gas a little bit, and any team is dangerous when they start making shots. But we stayed calm and we managed to put the game away and keep that separation we had built up.”

The Celtics separated themselves from the NBA pack this season, clinching their spot in the playoffs weeks ago, dusting their nearest competition in the Eastern Conference (the Knicks) by 14 games in the standings, leading the league with 64 regular-season wins. They hit the playoffs as a heavy favorite to add to their trophy case, a road to a Finals berth that opened even more with recent injuries to the Heat’s best player, Jimmy Butler, to Philadelphia’s do-everything center, Joel Embiid, and to Milwaukee’s own former NBA champ, Giannis Antetokounmpo.

Yet as every championship-or-bust story reminds us, there are a lot more busts than there are champions, something the 26-year-old Tatum and his 27-year-old partner Brown know all too well. The weight of expectation will grow heavier the deeper this playoff road goes, and these Celtics have been schooled on just how high those expectations are. Until this core group wins a championship, that burden remains. Such is the price of their talent and history, the surcharge for how tantalizingly close they’ve already been. With one trip to the NBA Finals (a loss to the Warriors in 2022) and four more to the Eastern Conference finals (losses to the Heat in 2020 and 2023 and the Cavaliers, in 2017 and ‘18), the hope, and the pain, run concurrently deep.

But this is their time. From opening this first game by outscoring the Heat, 14-0, they made that clear.

“We just need to stay poised,” Tatum said. “This is the playoffs; we’re not supposed to blow them out. No lead is necessarily safe. But don’t panic when they go on a run and hit shots. Continue to play the right way.”

Long road ahead, but a great first step.

Tara Sullivan is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at tara.sullivan@globe.com. Follow her @Globe_Tara.