The Celtics didn’t need to be perfect to beat Cavaliers in Game 1

The Celtics dominated the second half and cruised in the fourth quarter to a blowout 125-90 win over the Cavaliers to take 1-0 lead in the Eastern Conference semifinal on Tuesday.

Here are the takeaways. 

1. The Celtics led by 10 at halftime despite an abysmal 6-for-22 start from 3-point range. They won by 25 even though Jayson Tatum shot 7-for-19 from the field and 0-for-5 from three, finishing with 18 points. They won comfortably even though Donovan Mitchell scored 33 points on 12-for-25 shooting. 

Quite simply, the Celtics are significantly better than the Cavaliers. 

That’s not to say the series is over by any means. Mitchell is an explosive player who could go off and help the Cavs eke out a Game 2 win before the series shifts to Cleveland, and if the Cavaliers can then split on their home floor, the series becomes a much less predictable best-of-three affair. Odd things happen in the playoffs all the time. 

But that’s not what Tuesday’s contest suggested is likely to happen. On Tuesday, we saw a Celtics team that beat the Cavaliers the way they beat a lot of teams (including some good ones) this season: Handily, with a flurry of 3-pointers that put the game away and with contributions up and down the roster. 

The Cavaliers have some good players. The Celtics have notably more of them, and while nothing is guaranteed, it wouldn’t be a surprise if this is a short series. 

“The competitiveness was there, all the guys,” Joe Mazzulla said. “And then just a willingness to defend as a team. [The Cavs] are a great team, they’ve got really talented players, and one person can’t do it by themselves. It takes everybody, and we got some really good team defensive possessions and some good offensive possessions.”

2. Jaylen Brown more than made up for Tatum’s shortcomings on Tuesday, scoring 32 points on 12-for-18 shooting. He went 4-for-6 from 3-point range and 4-for-4 from the free-throw line. When the Celtics struggled to hit from deep early, Brown drove hard to the basket and created both his own offense and offense for others. 

“He was in a great mode tonight, a great rhythm,” Tatum said. “He was making timely plays when maybe they were about to go on a run or something. He was hitting big shots.”

Brown scored 15 of his 32 points in the first quarter, including three straight layups late in the period as the Celtics racked up 40 in the first 12 minutes. 

Notably, Brown – who struggled enormously with his handle in last year’s playoffs – finished with just one turnover on Tuesday. 

“He takes a ton of pride in just growing as a player, every year, every game, every day,” Mazzulla said. “Spends a lot of time on it. He’s not afraid to go after something that he knows he can improve on, which I think is huge for his growth mindset.”

We might all benefit from a little bit of Jaylen Brown’s mentality in our own lives. 

3. As good as Brown was, Derrick White was at least as good: 25 points, including 7-for-12 shooting from behind the arc. White was so hot from deep, he fired up a heat check at one point, which both missed and proved exactly how addictive shooting can be when you feel like you can’t miss. Even Derrick White — perhaps the player who most relentlessly makes the right decision of any Celtic — caved to the siren call of the hot hand.

Still, White continued his brilliant postseason run so far. 

“I’m getting pretty good looks,” he said. “Then obviously you make a couple, basket’s a little bit bigger. Then you can kind of take and make tougher ones. I think I definitely started the game with good looks and just went from there.”

At one point, White drew chants of “Der-rick White” from TD Garden fans which didn’t roll off the tongue particularly well but certainly spoke to how well he was playing.

“It was awesome,” White said. “Shout out to the fans, always. I’m grateful for them.”

4. When White takes 12 or more shots, the Celtics have now won 21 straight games. To paraphrase the NBA’s Kevin Hart playoff ads for this season: Is this a thing?

Derrick White says it’s not a thing. 

“Not that deep,” White said. “Just trying to get good looks.”

Mazzulla offered an interesting perspective.

“Usually the shots he takes are because we’re either out in transition, we’ve set really good screens and he has that, or there’s 2-on-1s and we’re making extra passes,” Mazzulla said. “So I think when those guys get more and more shots, it means we’re getting to the different layers of our offense.”

What we’re hearing is that it’s clearly a thing!

5. Continuing the parade of kudos following a blowout Game 1 win, here are some for Luke Kornet, who scored just four points but grabbed 10 rebounds in 21 minutes and was +12. Kornet blocked two shots and affected even more, but perhaps most importantly, he helped the Celtics keep Al Horford to just 27 minutes despite the absence of Kristaps Porzingis. 

“Tremendous,” Mazzulla said, when asked about Kornet. “Him, Payton [Pritchard], [Xavier Tillman], Sam [Hauser], those guys, great minutes by all those guys. Luke started that off, and it goes back to moments of the regular season. You can’t be a good team unless those guys win you games, and they’ve all played a huge part in winning games, whether it’s four-in-five nights, back to backs, it doesn’t matter. They bring it, and it’s important to have guys like that, and I thought Luke’s presence was big for us tonight.”

6. The Celtics shot 12-for-24 from behind the arc in the second half, which took their 27-percent performance in the first half and boosted them to 39.1 percent. 

The Cavaliers, meanwhile, shot 26.2% from deep. 

If that disparity doesn’t significantly shift in a favorable direction for Cleveland, the Celtics could move on expeditiously.

7. The Celtics took 11 free throws in the first quarter … then didn’t take another until well after the game was decided in the fourth, when Tatum scored an and-one. Oshae Brissett missed a pair in garbage time as well. 

8. The Celtics are now 5-1 in the playoffs even though Tatum is shooting 25 percent from three and 40.6 percent overall.

“Really just what I’ve been saying all year: We’ve got a really talented team,” Tatum said. “It shows the depth of our team and how we can win games in a lot of different ways.”

Mazzulla said he thought Tatum played a “well-rounded” game.

“His passing, his screening allowed for those other guys to get open looks because of his screening in the half court, and he had some good shots at the rim defensively,” Mazzulla said. “Success will look different every night for each player, but at the end of the day, you can’t be defined by one thing, and we’ve got to compete at both ends of the floor, and I thought our guys did that for most of the night.”

9. The series continues Thursday at 7 p.m. in Boston. 

“Anything can happen. It’s the NBA playoffs,” Brown said. “We’re just taking it one game at a time and that’s all we can control. And we try to come out, be the harder playing team. We stick to our agenda, and we let the chips fall where they may. It’s going to be tough for a team to have to beat us four times. But as long as we come out, we execute both ends, we’re the harder playing team, I think we’ll be fine.”