Game 5 of 2024 NBA Finals will forever remain etched in the memories of the Celtics faithful for good reasons. Topping the list is the obvious demolition of the Dallas Mavericks (106-88) to secure their 18th title. The runner up would be Celt guard Payton Pritchard sending one down the hoop with seconds on the clock before halftime. Third on the list, unfortunately, would be Derrick White colliding with Dereck Lively and getting a few of his teeth smashed in.
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A year down the line and with the new season is upon us, White recently discussed the incident in detail, describing the emotional roller coaster of thinking the worst to being told it wasn’t and then to eventually finding out it was indeed that bad.
Derrick White returned to the arena after a brief examination, only for the cameras to click a thousand pictures of his chipped teeth, which would end up having a longer half life than John Cena’s mismanaged heel run.
Explaining exactly what happened on the night, White said, “I see the ball. It’s a real loose ball, and I got to get on the floor. It’s the finals … I am diving, and as soon as it happened, I was like, ‘Oh, my tooth is gone.’ Like, my entire tooth was gone. I put my tongue up there, and I couldn’t feel anything.”
Turns out, White’s tooth wasn’t gone; it was just chipped. Having chipped many teeth as a kid, he thought he was fine. He said it didn’t really hurt but that he could feel one tooth was definitely broken and another wobbly. That wasn’t enough to make him sit out, though. After all, it was Game 5 of the NBA Finals.
“One of my favorite moments is hitting that 3 right after that and looking at the bench like, ‘F*** that tooth! We don’t need it. We don’t need it right now.’ It is one of my favorite moments, and there’s a picture of it,” he added, reminiscing.
White’s lowest moment of the game would follow soon after. “Payton [Pritchard] subs in for me, and I just go straight to the locker room because I have to go see the dentist at halftime. So I am in the tunnel when Payton hits the half-court shot. All I hear is just the crowd, and I am like, ‘What happened?’” he recalled.
“Someone’s like, ‘Payton.’ I am like, ‘Oh, he’s unbelievable!’ Because in my mind at the time … there were 2 or 3 seconds left that he got the ball, and he shot from the three-point line … I didn’t see it till next day that he shot it from half-court,” White added.
White still regrets not having waited a few seconds to see it done. Unfortunately, at the time, he was preoccupied with the doctor ominously telling him, “Oh, this isn’t good.” The dentist wanted to put a mouthpiece on him, but White made it clear there was no way he was going to oblige.
White walked out of the dentist’s office with 1 1/2 minutes to go in the game. His teammates were woefully unaware of what had transpired. When they realized it, they pushed him to show them the teeth.
“That’s when [Jaylen Brown] was like, ‘Oh, you ugly!’” White chuckled.
White described his injury. “I fractured this tooth. Actually the one that got chipped was my healthiest tooth. The one next to it, my gum got fractured. I chipped that tooth. That other one was fractured in half … lot of different problems were going on,” he added, asserting that it didn’t matter as long as he could go back on the court.
He would end up scoring 14 points, picking up 8 rebounds, snagging 2 steals and getting a rather karmic block on Lively. Later, White would famously get on the podium at the TD Garden and proclaim, “I would lose all my teeth for a championship!”
