The Celtics ain’t out of the woods yet, but they prevented further decline with a pretty solid 118-112 win against a good Pacers team.
Boston started this game falling behind Indiana 18-4, looking like fans’ worst nightmare-vision version of their struggling selves before the game’s first, merciful timeout. Then, Kemba Walker floor-generaled (and accounted for most of the points of) a 15-2 Celtics counterpunch, and they fought their way back to one of the first quarter-ending leads they’ve had in at least a week. Henceforth the game was mostly evenly matched—unstoppable force vs. immovable object-type stuff.