Celtics Jayson Tatum had 24 points, eight assists, and seven rebounds in the Celtics’ overtime win over the Clippers. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

By Tom Westerholm

January 23, 2025 | 2:56 AM

The Celtics nearly blew a gimme on Wednesday, but they pulled themselves together in overtime and defeated a short-handed Clippers team 117-113. 

Here are the takeaways. 

The Celtics were getting cooked in the third quarter when Joe Mazzulla made a surprise move, sending little-used guard Jaden Springer in after a timeout to try to slow down Kevin Porter Jr. 

Prior to Springer’s entrance, Porter was doing whatever he wanted against the Celtics. After scoring 11 points in the first half, Porter started getting to the rim at will at the beginning of the period. Once he got comfortable, he started firing up jumpers, and everything he launched dropped through. Porter is a dangerous scorer, and the Celtics were in danger of getting beaten by a bench player infused with confidence by the absence of James Harden, Kawhi Leonard, Norm Powell and the rest of the Clippers’ regular rotation. 

Then, at 4:18 remaining in the third quarter, Springer was thrown in to do something about it, and the game changed entirely. Over the course of 12 minutes, Springer racked up four steals. On the fourth, a frustrated Porter committed a foul, and he didn’t score again until overtime, when he got matched up with Jaylen Brown (who struggled on Porter in the third quarter as well). 

Springer isn’t a great offensive player, but after making himself indispensable to Wednesday’s game by completely shutting off the Clippers’ offense, he also hit a pair of 3-pointers, including a crucial one with 34 seconds remaining in overtime when the Celtics were faltering for the second time (we will go over the first falter in excruciating detail here shortly). 

Without Jaden Springer, the Celtics probably would not have won Wednesday’s game. If anyone is likely to be dealt before the trade deadline, Springer is a prime candidate, but his impact against the Clippers was hard to quantify. 

The Celtics really need to nip this ugly trend in the bud as soon as possible: After taking a six-point lead with 1:03 remaining, they proceeded to fritter it away, allowing the Clippers to force overtime.

How did the lead get away from them?

The fourth quarter and overtime were a really tough stretch for Brown. After Terance Mann scored a quick layup with a minute remaining, Brown missed a pull-up late in the shot clock. The Clippers couldn’t score on the other end, but Brown turned it over back with an offensive foul. 

That offensive foul was a little controversial – Brown certainly wrapped up his defender, but Joe Mazzulla (and the rest of the Celtics) claimed vociferously that he tried to call a timeout. 

Faint audio and video evidence show that Mazzulla may have had a point. 

Still, the Clippers had the ball and a little life. Amir Coffey scored a quick driving two, and the Celtics suddenly needed to make free throws to ice the game. 

Of course, they needed to get free throws before they could ice the game, and they failed to do so: The Celtics inbounded to Brown, who got trapped and stuck. He tried to pass the ball out of the double-team, but Derrick Jones Jr. read the play perfectly and intercepted the pass. Jones ran the length of the floor and scored to tie the game. The Celtics failed to get a shot off, sending the game to overtime. 

The Celtics looked appropriately angry at themselves for letting their six-point lead slide, and they leaped out to a 112-105 lead with three triples to start the period – one each by Derrick White, Jayson Tatum, and Brown. The Clippers trimmed that lead as well, but Springer’s 3-pointer and a late layup by Neemias Queta finally slammed the door, and Tatum slammed the ball into the floor as the buzzer sounded. 

Putting teams away is important for a lot of reasons – primarily, of course, because it’s important to win games, but also because of nights like Wednesday when the Celtics put completely unnecessary pressure on themselves against a team that announced Derrick Jones Jr. when introducing their starting lineup. 

After the game, Brown told reporters that he has been dealing with a number of ailments, and that he rolled his ankle in the second quarter, which threw him off (and presumably slowed him down defensively) the rest of the way. He finished with 25 points on 8-for-15 shooting, although his five costly turnovers marred his stat line. 

With a very busy schedule ahead, Brown might be absent from Thursday’s game.

You read that right: In the 12,888 minutes White has played in his career, he had yet to receive a technical before Wednesday. 

The technical, predictably, was not for arguing with a referee. It came on a late drive by Jones. 

The technical was initially reviewed for a flagrant foul, but the officials determined that the first foul was actually on Brown. As a result, White’s follow-through – which smacked Jones in the face – was a technical, not a flagrant. 

White finished with 20 points, six rebounds and four assists. He was 4-for-12 from three, but he kept shooting through early woes, which proved important in the fourth quarter and overtime when he knocked down three important triples. White was 4-for-7 in the fourth quarter and scored 10 points. 

Queta showed both what he brings and takes away when he’s on the floor.

First, the bad: The Clippers targeted him repeatedly in the pick-and-roll and on switches, and they got a lot of good looks as a result. Queta’s defensive positioning still looks problematic, and the Clippers took advantage of him going too high on screens repeatedly. 

The good, however: Queta looks better and better on the offensive end. He scored 11 points on 5-for-7 shooting in 22 minutes and drew praise from Brian Scalabrine on the NBC Sports Boston broadcast for getting out of screens quickly and diving to the basket, which created easy offense. On the Celtics’ final possession of the game, needing any basket to clinch the win, Queta made himself available in the dunker’s spot for Derrick White, pump faked to send two Clippers defenders flying, then calmly scored a reverse layup. 

Hauser shot 5-for-7 from 3-point range, finishing with 15 points, four rebounds, and a steal. After a colder-than-usual stretch to start the season, Hauser is shooting 40.7 percent from three in his last five games and appears to be regaining his form. 

After letting Wednesday’s game slip into overtime, the Celtics have a showdown against the Lakers on Thursday at 10 p.m. They face the Mavericks in a Finals rematch on Saturday at 5:30 p.m.

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