Jrue Holiday shrugs off a career milestone with his focus squarely on winning

BOSTON — Jrue Holiday doesn’t care about his personal stats. All he cares about at the moment is that the Boston Celtics win basketball games.

That has been clear over his first 10 games with his new team, but especially so following Monday night’s 114-98 victory over the Knicks at TD Garden. The defensively minded guard hit an offensive milestone during the win, and simply shrugged it off.

Celtics fans gave Holiday a loud ovation after the guard stepped into a 3-pointer at the end of the third quarter, putting Boston up 84-74. He had no idea why though, since he was completely unaware that he was near 15,000 points for his career.

silky smooth for 15k pic.twitter.com/KNkF8Lv2JR

— Boston Celtics (@celtics) November 14, 2023

“When they started cheering. I heard my name a little bit so I figured I did something wrong,” Holiday joked after the win.

Holiday is nowhere near the top of the NBA’s all-time scoring list, but that has never been his game. Still, with 15,005 points to his name after dropping 14 on the Knicks, Holiday is entering some fine company in league history.

He’s within striking distance of the Top 150 (sitting at No. 158 at the moment), and will likely pass the likes of Shawn Kemp, Tim Hardaway, and former Celtics great Sam Jones (15,411) at some point this season.

Does any of this matter to Holiday? It doesn’t seem like it. He’s much more interested in the final score than the box score.

“Winning games. That’s the only one, to be completely honest,” he said. “It’s cool to get those accolades, I won’t lie. But I think the biggest one is winning.”

The 33-year-old is laser focused on getting the Celtics over the championship hump this season, and is willing to do anything and everything to get them there. On Monday night, that included D-ing up against Knicks big man Julius Randle, and Holiday didn’t back down from the fight.

That’s because Holiday never backs down from a defensive battle, and is putting in some early work to earn the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year award. And on offense, he keeps opposing defenses guessing with both his excellent passing and silky shooting.

But perhaps his biggest attribute to the team is his attitude and commitment to winning. Being fully unaware of such a career highlight as 15,000 points is a sure sign that Holiday puts his team first, and his own accolades second.