Al Horford, two for two and a steal.

Now it's time to talk, Celtics.

Delmy, Dolmy, don't go roaring out of the game.

This is the Sports Hub Celtics show with Gasper and Merritt.

985, the Sports Hub.

Game on lock for sure.

Very quiet here at the field house.

Collison misses a three.

Rebound belongs to Jalen Brown, and the seconds will tick away.

The Boston Celtics struggled all year trying to string together three wins over an 82 game season but in the postseason they have been reborn and they come out of the gates and take a 3-0 series lead over the Indiana Pacers the final score Boston 104 Indiana 96, Indiana 96. On the road, we weren't great last year, and we've talked about that a lot. We weren't great in game threes, but we were

ready to play. They were also ready, and we made a bunch of shots and felt better about

ourselves than we were probably playing in the first quarter and then you know they came back and

took the lead the crowd was awesome as you would expect and you know that at that point in time you

just hit singles until the end and that's what we tried to do feels good I'm looking forward to

the next one you got to keep doing it we didn't get as many role wins as we wanted last year and that

was like a big key thing last year for us so it feels good to get our first one to start this playoffs off in 2019.

That's Jalen Brown and head coach Brad Stevens.

After last night, Celtics win over the Pacers, 104, 96 in game three of this exhibition

series.

I'm sorry, playoff series, first round playoff series for the Celtics and the Pacers. No asterisk? No asterisk, Joe. I just... Exhibition, playoffs. I want to be consistent here. I just can't take it all that seriously. And it's more because of the Pacers without victoral people than anything else. They play decent enough team basketball, and that's the reason that they're there they're very much reminiscent of the celtics teams uh with brad stevens when he first got here and the isaiah thomas like max effort night and night out and that's nice but that can only take you so far and i think that's what you've seen so far in these first three games there's times where they've actually been dominant like you know the third quarter of the game in game too. It's like, oh, okay, you got something here. Even last night was pretty competitive. But did you ever really sweat that? Like, come on. Like, the Celtics just have too much talent, even when they get real sloppy. They're too good. The Pacers stink. I think it would learn, for me, we'd learn more about, you know, the intestinal fortitude of the Celtics, and we'd see more maybe of the cracks that you saw throughout the regular season. If they were playing a team that gave them problems throughout the regular season, like an Orlando or even Brooklyn in this first round. So to me, the playoffs really start in round two when they take on Milwaukee. But for now, good tune-ups. And I think we can learn some things from what we've seen, especially last night. Jalen Brown shines both offensively and defensively. And Jason Tatum, to me, maybe more than anybody else, and I don't know, you feel, Joan, watching these first three games, Jason Tatum's probably been the best player in this series so far. Yeah, Tatum had a hell of a pass in that game to come back come back when they were down. Last night hit some big shots. Had that thunderous dunk in the last game as well. Yeah, he's been outstanding, and I do feel like he's been set up a lot by, by Kyrie Irving. It's kind of like they're playing a two-man game a little bit. They're always looking at Horford inside. But yeah, he's hitting shots from the outside. He had a couple of fourth quarter big shots yesterday. And that was after Jalen Brown started out outstanding. So, you know, I know there is, it's hard to take a lot of positives away from the Pacers, okay? But this team has yet to win big games on the road. And they've yet to close out games. They had a big lead yesterday. They almost blew it, but they came back to hold it. So I take a lot from last night's win just for the simple fact that they can do it. Like we haven't seen it this year. And they didn't need Kyrie to make the big plays. It was Tatum down the stretch.

It was Hawford with a nice little tip in late in the game. So, yes, I agree. Right now, Jason Tatum has elevated. He's playing better now than he did all season. I think he was just, you know, average during the regular season. Now we're starting to see a guy who wants to ball late and hitting big shots. but he missed two free throws late last night to truly put it away.

Yeah, one of the things we're watching to see a guy who wants the ball late and hitting big shots, but he missed two free throws late last night to truly put it away. Yeah, one of the things in watching, so Brown's good last night, and he's hitting shots. We'll play some of the audio, too, from Sean Grady mentioning this very thing. Like, I don't know if you notice this. Like, he's, he's hitting these jumpers from mid range and, like, his outside shot is nice. And, like, you'll see that when it's really starting to click like he can hit shot after shot after shot you get up at the free throw line and it's brick after brick after brick is that like a mental thing like I don't know like I'm I'm not not gonna I not like I played basketball at a very high level at any point a little bit of high school that was it like but that to me it just makes no sense is just a mental thing? He gets to the stripe and it's like, ah, he locks up.

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