Celtics NBA Playoffs tracker: Is Boston back on track with its shooting?

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The 3s fell for Boston and so did the New York Knicks.

The Celtics connected on 20 3-pointers Saturday and ran away with Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals with a 115-93 win at Madison Square Garden. Payton Pritchard paced them with 23 points, Jayson Tatum scored 22 — passing Kobe Bryant for the second-most points by a player 27 years old or younger in the playoffs — and Jaylen Brown added 19. Jalen Brunson scored a game-high 27 points for the Knicks.

There was no second-half collapse, wrote Souichi Terada of MassLive, as the Celtics’ lead grew to 31 points. Boston shot 12 of 19 on 3s in the first half and finished 20 of 40. The C’s continued to play their best on the road after a franchise-record 33 victories away from Boston.

MassLive columnist Matt Vautour wondered if the Celtics solved their problems or just simply shot better.

“It was just a matter of time. We’re all professionals. We work really hard on our craft,” Tatum said in Vautour’s column. “We put a lot of time in. You understand there are times when your shot might not be falling, but it always balances out.”

Game 4 is 7:30 p.m. Monday in New York. It will be televised by ESPN. Game 5 will return to Boston on Wednesday.

Here are more storylines and takeaways coming out of that series, opposite the Cavs vs. Pacers in the Eastern Conference:

Celtics showed their poise

With a complete effort, Boston showed its guile and ability to respond in dire circumstances, wrote Boston Globe columnist Gary Washburn.

Mazzulla’s strategic moves

Boston repeatedly put Mitchell Robinson on the free-throw line for New York. The strategy continued into the third quarter with the Celtics up by a considerable margin.

Robinson shot 4 of 12 from the line. He is 7 of 23 in the series.

“Just process over results,” Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said, as reported by Terada. “You just always stick to the process of what you think gives you the best chance to win on that possession and to win in that game.”

That wasn’t the only thing Mazzulla did.

He hunted mismatch for his talented squad to exploit, namely the defensive deficiencies of Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns.

“Among Boston’s 24 first half field goals, 14 of those came in possessions that directly involved targeting Brunson and Towns,” wrote MassLive’s Brian Robb. “Some of the attacks involved obvious choices like Tatum staying committed to taking wide-open pull-up 3s against Towns drops in a pick-and-roll.”

Towns also struggled, offensively, making only 5 of 18 shots. He is suffering from a hand injury.

“At one point in Game 3, Towns appeared to say “I broke it,” while speaking to a teammate,” Robb wrote. “However, both Towns and coach Tom Thibodeau played coy after the game when asked about the injury.”

Pritchard shows his playoff value

The NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year showed his worth in Game 3 with a team-high 23 points. Pritchard set a new career high in the playoffs and outscored the Knicks’ bench by himself.

“Just got to maintain my aggressiveness, any chance I get,” Pritchard said in Robb’s report. “Attack the paint, I’ll always be hunting the 3 ball, obviously, but I thought I did a good job of sometimes getting in the paint, making a play.”

Pritchard heeded the call to find his mark, wrote Khari Thompson of the Boston Globe.

Celtics tap into ‘darkness’

The defending champs’ core roster endured heartbreak before last season’s title run, writes Terada for MassLive.

Mazzulla pointed that out after Boston’s Game 3 win in New York, saying, “You’ve got to tap into your darkness.”

“If you plan on doing this for a long time, trust me, it’ll be a lot worse than the last 72 hours,” Mazzulla said in Terada’s report. “And that’s the perspective you have to have. At the end of the day, we have the test in front of us, and I have a group of guys that I wouldn’t want anyone else to be able to go through that. This is the fun part. I didn’t get into the journey for it to be easy. It’s been dark, but in a good way.”

What could a Boston loss mean this offseason

ESPN’s Brian Windhorst writes a series loss for Boston could have significant ramifications on this offseason. According to Windhorst, the Celtics’ continued viability will be in question.

⦁ The team is being sold to a group led by investor Bill Chisholm for more than $6 billion.

⦁ Al Horford is in the final season of his contract and could retire, but Boston is facing payroll and luxury taxes of $464 million.

“If the Celtics don’t make it out of this second-round meeting with the Knicks — and fail to defend their title just as the past five NBA champions have done so — the degree of fallout is uncertain,” Windhorst writes. “Expensive consultants aren’t needed to advise against spending $500 million on a roster that didn’t return to the conference finals.”