Derrick White Gets Comfortable in Green as Celtics Secure Game 4 Win

BOSTON — Derrick White and Al Horford wouldn’t reveal how Marcus Smart looked at shootaround ahead of Game 4. Smart had been seen the day before moving sluggishly exiting Boston’s practice facility. Ime Udoka reported moments earlier that Smart had suffered a bad ankle sprain in the Celtics’ Game 3 loss to the Heat, with swelling and pain threatening his availability two nights later.

White, who scored 0 points in the loss and fell to 33.8% from the field and 23.7% from three this postseason, sensed the urgency of the moment. He’d start in Smart’s and took on a more aggressive mindset.

“I’m trying to be more aggressive. I feel like the last game and a half, I’ve just been real passive,” White told CLNS Media at shootaround on Monday. “On both sides, just be a little more aggressive. Create for myself and my teammates and just try to help us any way, but I got to be a little more aggressive. Sometimes you’re just trying to get other guys involved, try to do other things, but you’ve got to play your game, do what you do, and that’s what the coaching staff’s been telling me, my teammates. So just go out there and be who I’ve been in my career … do what I do.”

The Celtics announced White first in introductions, Smart unable to get the swelling and pain to a place where he could suit up, and the team received their first seven points from their trade deadline addition on the way to an 7-0, then 18-1 lead. White added a pair of steals and finished the quarter with 10 points on eight shots, adding eight rebounds, six assists and three steals on 4-for-14 shooting. Unable to break his slump from deep, he got downhill in the 102-82 win where the Celtics shot only 23.5% from deep. A foundation.

Boston forced a Game 6 at home on Friday night, tying the series 2-2 and leading by as many as 32 points in the wall-to-wall victory. The Celtics improved to 5-0 in these playoffs after losses, winning six in a row with the pressure turned up, if you include Game 7 against Milwaukee. The east finals that followed became a series defined by physicality, injuries, depth and responses early. White took advantage of the Heat playing away from him defensively, and drove in transition with Jimmy Butler late to pick him up for two on the first play on Monday.

“Understanding the urgency with Marcus being out and the position he’s put in,” Udoka told CLNS was the key to White’s performance. “Obviously, starting the game, (he’s) going to have the ball in his hands a lot more and wanted him to be confident, aggressive and he picked his spots well early one. They guard him a certain way, told him look for his shot, but also get downhill and facilitate. He does that extremely well, it just happens that he got the right looks, took the shots that were there and started to find the other guys.”

Udoka and the Celtics hyped up White’s ability to do all the little things since his arrival in Boston, with the guard rarely able to break his shooting lull that started in San Antonio and grew worse following the deadline deal. Brad Stevens called him a perfect fit. The trade initially caught White off-guard, needing to move across the country in February while expecting a child with his wife Hannah. Hendrix, their first child, was born last week on the day of Game 2 as the Celtics shot 20-for-40 from deep in his absence. White had missed a flight and caught the next available, rushing to Boston from Miami.

White’s tried to get in where he fits in on the court while taking turns on night duty off, playing off-ball as much as he has in his career. Leaning into the other areas of his game to contribute and continuing to shoot the open threes, the misses piled up, 29 on 38 tries entering Monday. The Celtics expected playing alongside Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum to free up White and improve his percentages. That hasn’t held true, and confidence became a concern as some of the worst shooting struggles of his career mounted. His teammates urged him on.

“(We’re) just letting him know he can be comfortable with us,” Robert Williams III told CLNS Media after Game 4. “Letting him know he’s welcome. I’ve tried to do that since the day he got here. It’s hard, especially in the middle of the season, coming to a team. You see guys laughing, joking, playing, you’re the new guy. I just tried to let him know we’re thankful for him, you’re welcome to this brotherhood. Speak up when you see something. Don’t be scared. He set the tone for us defensively early in the game.”

Boston’s defensive stops, spearheaded by Williams III and Horford reuniting in the post, now a +6.3 net rating and 91.2 defensive rating in 76 playoff minutes together. They shut off the lane with White bursting through screens above the three-point line and sending the Celtics on the run stopping the Heat’s first 14 shots.

Miami scored one point in over eight minutes to begin the game. White buried a three on the second possession. He entered the zone ahead of his teammates on the third, lined up one-on-one with Max Strus and able to take him off the dribble to the hoop. White also played a key role in holding Strus to 0-for-7 shooting on the other end.

White scored Boston’s first seven points and grabbed his second steal all within the first three minutes. He told himself entering the game that even if he failed, he’d do so aggressively. That made his impact more comparable to Smart, the player White filled in for. As wide-ranging as the defensive player of the year’s impact reaches, he’s looking to score too, which makes Smart unpredictable and a better facilitator. The Bucks had started daring White to shoot into Game 7, where he finished 1-for-10, and started seeing Payton Pritchard dig into his minutes some.

The pair got to share the court together into smaller lineups in Game 4, where the Celtics torched Miami. Tatum racked up 31 points in a bounce back effort. He exceeded his Game 3 scoring in the first half of Game 4 and shot 8-for-16, including finishing an alley-oop from White on the break.

They also got a two-man game going at one point, reminiscent of Smart and Tatum’s chemistry in the half court.

“(White’s) been great. Part-time starter when guys are out,” Udoka said. “He checks so many boxes for us. Like I said, it’s not only things that show up on the stat sheet like scoring. He’s a guy who moves the ball extremely well, multiple positions. So all those guys extremely well, multiple positions, so all those things he does for us, we don’t lose a lot when certain guys are in or out. With him, it was a matter of understanding who we are here. The difference from San Antonio, where (Gregg Popovich) is on him about not fouling, I want us to be a little more aggressive and don’t mind taking a foul or two, so he has to kind of shift his mindset as far as that, and I’ve tried to get him up to speed with what everybody else is doing. It’s going to take some time, but couldn’t be more happy with him.”

For now, White’s three-point shooting slump continues, but his importance looms large in a physical series that’s becoming a race of the healthiest and deepest to the finish line. Where players like White, Pritchard and Grant Williams have allowed the Celtics to stack up with Miami’s lauded bench.

The Heat’s starters scored only 18 points in their loss, and White’s holding Strus, Duncan Robinson, Gabe Vincent, Victor Oladipo and Kyle Lowry to 3-for-16 shooting through three games.

Udoka quipped after his team’s blowout win in Game 2 against the Bucks earlier this month that the Celtics don’t need Smart, adding, more seriously, that White’s interchangeability on the defensive end made losing an all-defensive player less damaging than one would assume. Smart fired back that Boston doesn’t really need Udoka as he exited approached the podium.

White, despite playing under Udoka for his first two seasons with the Spurs, is acclimating to the speak-your-mind, jabbing environment. A team that needs offensive settlers like him. He’s still quiet, still passive at times, still figuring out his role caught between on and off-ball situations.

“It’s just reaching out, everybody need a shoulder to lean on sometimes. Just reach out as much as possible. I might just ask him what he asked for breakfast this morning.”