Who’s the biggest star on the Celtics? Let me submit Jrue Holiday for consideration.
Jrue Holiday was just that good in Game 2 Sunday night, scoring a team-high 26 points on 11 of 14 shooting.
Jason Kidd created a stir, as deliberately as can be, when he said with a practiced matter-of-factness that Jaylen Brown is the Celtics’ best player.
Perhaps you heard about that, yes?
It was an amusing, transparent, and somewhat desperate bit of gamesmanship from the Mavericks coach, who was searching for something, anything, after an 18-point Game 1 loss in the NBA Finals.
Kidd was jostling the ashes of the burned-out conversation around whether Brown and three-time first-team All-NBA selection Jayson Tatum … I don’t know, play Madden together or something.
I hit the mute button on the topic of their relationship three or four Eastern Conference finals appearances ago. And neither Brown nor Tatum lunged for the bait. In their seven mostly outstanding seasons together, they’ve heard it all, and heard it all again.
I’ve got to tell you though: If Kidd wants to throw another name out there between now and Game 3 Wednesday night as the Celtics’ truest star, we will at the very least have something pleasant to ponder.
Jrue Holiday was just that good in Game 2 Sunday night.
Alteration: Jrue Holiday was just that good again.
So what exactly did Holiday do in the Celtics’ 105-98 victory at TD Garden, their ninth straight victory this postseason and one that leaves them two wins away from their 18th NBA title?
Whatever the Celtics needed, and a whole lot more beyond that. You know, the usual for him when the stakes are highest.
On a night when Tatum struggled from the field (6 of 22 shooting) and the Celtics hit just 10 of 39 3-pointers, Holiday scored a team-high 26 points on 11 of 14 shooting. Many of his points came while roaming the “dunker’s spot” near the hoop, anticipating and awaiting Tatum (12 assists) passes.
Eleven of his points came in the second quarter, including eight straight Celtics points in a 2 minute, 52 second span starting at the 5:22 mark. Three of those baskets were assisted by Tatum.
Holiday also drilled a 3-pointer with :37 seconds left in the quarter, giving the Celtics their largest lead to that point at 54-49.
He added six more in the third as the Celtics took a 93-83 lead into the fourth quarter.
But Holiday’s contributions, as usual, weren’t just about scoring.
He collected a team-high 11 rebounds, including four on the offensive end, which was reminiscent of his contribution on the boards early this season when he was still figuring out his role on the Celtics after arriving in a trade the day before training camp.
Holiday also dished out three assists, including a sensational wrap-around pass to Tatum for an old-school 3-point play in the second quarter.
And, being five-time All-Defense selection Jrue Holiday and all, he guarded the Mavericks with his usual perpetual tenaciousness, whether hounding Kyrie Irving into another subpar game (he shot 7 for 18 and lost his 12th straight game at the Garden) or making Luka Doncic … well, work extra hard for his array of ridiculous makes. (He finished with 32 points.)
Here’s a sentence that has been written many times before: Holiday’s most crucial play came on defense.
Actually, it was a sequence.
With just over 4 minutes remaining in the game, Holiday tipped a P.J. Washington pass into the backcourt as the Mavericks were trying to advance the ball. Doncic picked it up and hurriedly heaved a pass toward Washington that Derrick White picked off like a young Mike Haynes.
White found his backcourt partner Holiday. He buried his second 3 of the night, and the Celtics led 100-89.
It wasn’t the biggest play of the game, but it was one of them, and Holiday and White’s mutual relentlessness offered reassurance that the Celtics would make the necessary plays down the stretch.
That reassurance – that the right play will be made at the critical time – might be the most important element Holiday brings to the Celtics. We love ya, Marcus Smart, but …
Holiday was the second-best player on the Bucks’ 2021 championship team, and if you look up his ‘21 Finals highlights on YouTube, it’s wild how familiar they look.
He’s doing the exact same things right now, which comes as no surprise to his teammates whatsoever.
“He has that experience, that just championship DNA, which you hear all about all the time,” said White. “You don’t really know what it takes until you do what it takes. Just the moment he came to our team in training camp, he kind of just had that presence about him. He just knows how to win.”
White said Holiday’s selflessness – and willingness to cede playmaking duties – has been a big reason for his own success.
“I can’t begin to talk about how thankful and grateful I am for Jrue just kind of allowing me to kind of take that next step,” said White. He added with a laugh, “He could easily have come in and been like, ‘I’m Jrue Holiday, and I’m like, ‘You are Jrue Holiday, a hundred percent.’ “
A three-time winner of the Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year award, Holiday predictably eluded postgame praise as deftly as he eluded the Dallas defense on the baseline Sunday night.
“I’m a utility guy,” he said. “I’ll do whatever. … I think when you sacrifice together and you do something together, it brings you closer. I think being able to go through wins and losses and to build something, it means a lot.”
Per NBC Sports Boston, “whatever” included joining Wilt Chamberlain, Shaquille O’Neal, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the only players in postseason history to score 25 or more points and grab 10 or more rebounds while shooting 78 percent from the field in a playoff game.
Apparently, along with all of his other attributes, Holiday is one of the elite big men in history. Who knew?
This much is certain. Should Kidd try to tweak Tatum and Brown again, Holiday will be the first to have their backs.
He began his postgame availability by clarifying a comment he made Saturday that could have been construed as suggesting Brown was superior to Tatum.
“I do not prefer one or the other,” said Holiday. “I prefer both. Both of them are superstars, and it’s being shown out here on the biggest stage in the world.”
He’d never admit it, but in his own subtle, original way, Holiday is a superstar too, with his poised and uncanny knack for doing whatever the moment demands.
The bigger the stage, the better he is. The athletes we say that about are the ones that end up adored forever.
Jrue Holiday turns 34 Wednesday. The Celtics are his fourth NBA team, fifth if his Portland layover counts, in 15 NBA seasons.
He’s seen some things. He’s won elsewhere. He’s still in his first season here.
Yet he’s become the quintessential Celtic.
I don’t even want to think of the degrees of difficulty they might have faced this season had Brad Stevens never brought him here.
“Good thing,” said Tatum, “that we don’t have to find out.”
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