This was one of those rare Celtics wins where the outcome was really never in doubt. The Celtics put together a big lead and aside from one difficult stretch late in the second, they stayed ahead.
Tatum and Brown were both on, scoring 33 and 34 points, both on 11-19 shooting. After missing 7 threes in the first game, Tatum hit his first 4, all in Q1, then missed his last 5. Brown was a more consistent 7 for 11 from downtown.
Dennis Schroder had a good scoring game, shooting well and adding 23 points, but he also showed why I can't stand him as a player, as he factored right into the middle of a Celtic collpase late in Q2. With about 4.5 minutes left in the quarter, the Celtics were sitting on a nice lead (51-37). A Pacer missed a shot, with a long rebound toward the left slideline right around the break. Schroder is the closet Celtic, he takes a step toward the losse ball and then stops to let it go out of bounds. Lance Stevenson gets the rebound and feeds someone for a missed three and a putback. That bucket keyed a 10-1 Pacer run that cut the lead to 5 points (52-47) - the closest this ever was to being a game. During the Pacer run, the Celtics were not getting good opportunities on offense and Schroder was doing his stupid walk the dog shit. (Ironically, during a late possession in at the end of the half, were maybe there was something to gain by keeping the clock frozen, Schroder brough the ball up normally).
Rob was good in this game in a way that doesn't show up in a box score: he played only 23 minutes due to 1) foul trouble, 2) banging heads with Lance and needing stitches, 3) 3 full minutes of garbage time at the end. +21.
This was also the best game from Al in a while. Modest stats (8-4-4 in 28 minutes), but when the team came out in the third quarter leading by only 5, they went to him for a couple of key baskets. He also had a couple of great assists on this one. On one, he drove the key and tossed up a lob for Rob to finish with a dunk over Turner. On another, he was in the right corner, ball on the left side, and 3 Celtics passed the ball around the perimeter finally reaching Al in the corner. Al pump fakes, drives, defense collpases onto him, and he hits a short interior pass to Gant for an easy 2.
None much from the bench guys. Pritchard got 11 minutes including garbage time, his first minues back, didn't accomplish much. Late innthe first quarter, for 2-3 minutes, was the only time Ime tried not having a PG (Schroder or Pritchard) on the floor. Richardson and Grant got a lot of minutes, Freedom got a couple in the second half. Nesmith, Fernando, Langford, Thomas got the 3 minutes of garbage time.