Monday’s game looked like a loss for nearly 30 minutes, but the Celtics managed an ugly 103-95 win over the Pacers.
Luka Garza #52 and Jaylen Brown #7 blocked Indiana Pacers Benedict Mathurin #00 during the first quarter of a game at TD Garden on Monday, Dec. 22, 2025. Ben Pennington for The Boston Globe
The Celtics rallied from a 20-point deficit and an abysmal first-half performance to defeat the Pacers 103-95 on Monday for their third straight win, improving to 18-11.
Here are the takeaways.
Jaylen Brown received some well-earned ‘M-V-P’ chants.
The biggest shot of the game may have looked familiar to Celtics fans: A baseline inbound pass to Jaylen Brown flashing to the corner, where Brown turned to the hoop, gathered himself and let fly a high-arcing 3-pointer that cleared the backboard and snapped through the net without touching the rim.
The shot was nearly perfect from a narrative perspective. It pushed Brown (33 points, 11-for-25 shooting) over the 30-point mark for the 10th time in 11 games. It gave the Celtics what felt like an insurmountable five-point lead with 2:25 remaining
Most notably, the shot was a near-mirror image of Brown’s iconic corner 3-pointer against the Pacers in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals in 2024—just 94 feet away down the same sideline that Brown hugged on Monday.
The 3-pointer was part of a 14-point outburst for Brown in the fourth quarter at the end of which TD Garden fans chanted “M-V-P” as he stepped to the free-throw line, although they desisted when he missed the front end of the free throws.
Brown almost certainly won’t be a true contender for MVP by the time voters are issued their ballots—presumably that honor be bestowed upon Nikola Jokic (the best player in the world) or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (the best player on the best team).
But there is a certain status to a player who earns “M-V-P” chants, and Brown has ascended to that level this season. He might not be the league’s MVP, but he is—by a very wide margin—the biggest reason a team that did not expect to be this far above .500 at this stage can boast the third-best record in the Eastern Conference.
“I thought when it was his time, that’s what I told him,” Mazzulla said. “I said, ‘This is what you’re supposed to do.’ I mean, it’s an 8- to 12-point game. We have to earn these wins. […]
“I think he’s just playing great basketball for us.”
Brown said the chants mean “everything.”
“I think this has been my favorite season so far, being able to get an opportunity to lead a group,” Brown said. “Some of us, we have some championship experience, but we have five or six new guys who haven’t really played NBA basketball, and now we look like one of the better teams in the league.”
Joe Mazzulla benched the starters.
With the Celtics scuffling and looking a little lost in the third quarter, Joe Mazzulla made the drastic decision to bench the entire starting lineup: Brown, White, Pritchard, Queta, and Minott were all pulled off the floor in favor of a lineup featuring Luka Garza, Anfernee Simons, Sam Hauser, Hugo González, and Baylor Scheierman.
The bench didn’t turn the game on its head, but they did their job. Luka Garza was massive. Baylor Scheierman’s defense has impressed more than his offense, which was not exactly what the pre-draft scouting reports predicted. Brown and White, who simply didn’t look like they had the juice through 2.5 quarters, got enough of a break to play the entire fourth quarter (Brown conceded afterward that he wasn’t pleased about the decision at the time, but he praised Mazzulla for making it).
Maybe most importantly, Anfernee Simons put together just enough offense to help the Celtics make up some ground. Simons buried a big 3-pointer and knocked down a tough runner as part of an 11-point performance on 4-for-11 shooting.
“I think [Simons] has been really good for us the last couple games as well,” Mazzulla said. “He gets kind of put under the radar a little bit, but I thought some of his scoring stretch tonight and where he’s grown defensively helped that unit as well.”
The bench unit wasn’t a sports car hitting a pinpoint U-turn—rather, they were a luxury cruise liner slowly but inexorably turning back to port. The Celtics won Monday’s game in a long slow arc.
Luka Garza is crushing the offensive glass.
For the second game in a row, Garza had a major impact by hitting his super-strength with all of his might: He crushes the offensive glass. Garza finished Monday’s game with six points and nine rebounds, five of which were offensive.
Why does Garza play so hard?
“S***, I think I have no option,” Garza said. “To make it in this league, to make an impact on this team, for me, the athleticism I have that doesn’t really compare to other guys in terms of just the lack of it, I have no option to go out there and take my foot off the gas.
“I have to give everything I have every moment I’m on the court, and that’s been that way since I was a little kid. I enjoy it, I enjoy playing the game that way, and that’s where I have fun with it.”
Hugo González is a bad motherf*****.
After González played a career-high 37 minutes, which included crucial minutes as part of both the starting unit and the bench unit that turned the game around, he was doing media availability when Jayson Tatum stopped the proceedings.
“What I tell you yesterday?” Tatum asked González, who declined to answer. “You a bad motherf*****.”
We wrote on Saturday that Celtics fans are going to have a hard time containing their excitement about González, and apparently, that excitement extends to Celtics superstars. González didn’t really show anything new—with the possible exception of a sweeping euro-step around Pascal Siakam for a layup—but he was +20 with six points, 11 rebounds, two blocks and a steal. He drew a foul on an inbound pass, doing a passable impression of Marcus Smart, and he played 24 straight minutes.
“Anybody could step up,” González said. “Anybody can be important for us. The only thing that matters is that always we’ve got guys that want to get the win over everything.”
The Celtics won ugly.
Monday’s game looked like a loss for nearly 30 minutes. The Pacers were 12-for-20 from 3-point range in the first half, and the Celtics scored just 43 points in the first half (and 17 in the second quarter), entering the break trailing by 18.
But the Celtics never let the lead get beyond 20, they waited out a hot stretch by one of the league’s worst 3-point shooting teams, and they were rewarded.
“You have to earn wins in this league, and you have to earn them differently,” Mazzulla said. “That’s the mental toughness that we have to continue to build.”
Not every game the Celtics play in any season will be a masterpiece, and that’s especially the case this year. This year’s team has a resilience built from something—whether that’s a lack of expectations, experience, or simply an impressive amount of growth in a short amount of time.
“I like from the start of the season to the point we’re at now, our basketball IQ has increased, our poise has increased, our understanding of the game has increased, and that’s really what it’s about,” Brown said. “Continue to grow and get better, and I feel like I’ve watched these guys become better basketball players in a matter of three months.”
Jaylen Brown blew out a shoe.
Brown, of course, plays in his signature 741s—his own shoe brand created after he turned down a $50 million deal with Nike to maintain his own voice.
The shoes have received more or less positive reviews, and they have received rave reviews from the teammates who wore them, although the guess here is that even reviewers who are compromised by receiving a free pair are probably less biased than Brown’s teammates.
A broken shoe could be a tough look for a fledgling brand, but Brown’s All-NBA caliber season and his impressive durability so far would be solid counters.
You can trust us here as unbiased: This writer plays pick-up basketball in Tatum’s shoes.
What’s next
For the first time in nearly a decade, the Celtics won’t play a Christmas Day game (although one wonders, especially given the state of the Cavaliers, whether Adam Silver would like to have that Cavs-Knicks noon game back).
The next time the Celtics will take the court is Friday for a road game against the Pacers, and Brown is excited for a rematch with (we’re guessing here) Benedict Mathurin, who could be seen talking trash to Brown after blocking one of his layups in transition.
“One dude in particular was talking a little crazy,” Brown said. “So I’m looking forward to the next one.”
Friday’s contest against the Pacers is the start of a road trip that hits five different cities and tops 5,000 miles. None of the teams the Celtics face on their road trip is above .500.
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