The Celtics turned things around Thursday night in TD Garden after getting off to a slow start in their last game against Cleveland.

It was clear that Boston wanted to be the attacker right from the start, and their plans came through in production. Jayson Tatum followed his recent trend of trying to get other people involved early on by setting up two goals in a row to start the game.

Yes, it’s a surprise, but Derrick White did a lot of different things and scored five points in the first three minutes, including a nice putback layup over several taller players. In a strange change of events, Luke Kornet was ruled out with tightness in his left abductor just minutes into the first quarter, before he even checked in. As Neemias Queta sat on the bench in street clothes, Boston’s frontcourt depth was pretty low, which led to Lamar Stevens playing a lot in the first quarter.

Evan Mobley’s absence made it a little easier to deal with the lack of size, but Stevens couldn’t make the most of his time on the court because he was taken out early after three quick fouls. At the beginning of the game, Tatum mostly set up plays. In the middle of the quarter, he started scoring more by making shots from inside and outside the basket.

With Brown in mind, the “Best Friends” link was back in motion early when Jaylen connected with Kristaps Porzingis for this alley-oop:

Donovan Mitchell kept destroying Boston early on, which was to be expected since he had scored 30 or more points in five of his last seven games against the Celtics. With 12 points in the first, Spida had the most, but Boston had a 33-24 lead after 12 minutes. Their huge difference in three-point shooting made the difference: the Celtics made six of their ten long-range shots, while the Cavaliers only made one of their ten.

In the second quarter, Payton Pritchard made an instant impact with a great hustle play. He grabbed a contested rebound and then passed it to Al Horford for a layup in transition. From the outside, his fellow Bus 1 Boy Sam Hauser was also feeling it, and he made both of his first two threes.

Aside from those plays, the Celtics had a slow start to the second quarter. In the first five minutes, they only scored nine points. Joe Mazzulla ended that drought with a great ATO plan that gave Porzingis a curling chance off a double-screen that led to a layup for the 7-footer. Even though Kristaps had a sore leg before the game, that didn’t stop him from going to the basket a lot.

After a great start, Brown kept the good vibes going by hitting a tough fadeaway middy and then a three to keep the attack going.

Boston shot threes less often in the first half, but they were still 47.1% from three-point range and had a 65–54 lead at the break. The game was won by Brown (18 points) and Porzingis (15 points). Donovan Mitchell continued to shine for Cleveland with 21 points.

In the first minute of the second half, Darius Garland hit his head on Porzingis’ hip, which was very painful for the Cavaliers. He had to leave the game. Cleveland was lucky that their star guard could come back later in the quarter.

Jrue Holiday tried to get the offense going early in the second half. He made a layup and a three-pointer in transition to keep Boston well ahead. There were nine minutes left in the second-to-last quarter when Brown made another nice mid-range fadeaway that put him up 20 points.

Cleveland had some careless play with the ball, and Tatum got a slam on the other end after Brown stole the ball. It makes sense that Caris LeVert didn’t want to touch the MVP candidate at the basket.

After Tatum’s dunk, Cleveland went on a 7-0 run, but Hauser and Brown scored back-to-back baskets to calm things down. The Cavaliers were still in the game thanks to LeVert’s 15 points, which he scored at all three levels. Several times, Boston’s defense fell asleep, and Garland’s last-second three-pointer cut the Celtics’ lead to three points (90–87) with 12 minutes to go.

As they have done many times this season, the Celtics stepped up their defense when they needed to. The moment Lamar Stevens came back into the game, he made an immediate effect with his hustle. For that, he got an open dunk off a backdoor cut.

Once again getting ahead by more than ten points, the Celtics settled for bad threes several times, which let Cleveland close the gap. In the second half, Boston’s long-range shooting stopped completely. Also, whenever the Celtics tried to make their lead bigger, Mitchell, Garland, or LeVert always had an answer.

Brown made a huge hustle play with just over 2:30 left, fighting for a contested rebound and throwing a great pass to Jrue Holiday, whose layup put the Celtics up seven. Holiday had been leading the way scoring for Boston all night.

Several stops and two dunks by Jayson Tatum put his team ahead by ten points with 1:28, which turned out to be an unbeatable lead. Through the game, both teams swapped baskets, but Boston came out on top 116-107.

In the end, Tatum’s dominance down the stretch gave him 27 points, but all five players scored at least 14 points, making it a balanced offensive attack.

The Celtics will play the up-and-coming Orlando Magic at TD Garden on Friday, December 15 at 7:30 p.m. EST.