Breaking the Spell
Doc Rivers is a smart coach. And boy, was he pushing buttons in tonight's Bucks-Celtics contest. Joe Mazzulla was as well – for those criticizing Mazzulla's time out usage, go back and watch this one. But Doc cast his spell on the C's in the fourth quarter, and they willingly fell into it. And it almost cost Boston a win, until Jayson Tatum had had enough.
The Celtics opened the fourth quarter with an 18-point lead, and had won each of the first three quarters by at least five points. After a quick Payton Pritchard three pushed the lead to 21, Milwaukee hit three straight shots to cut it to 15. And then Tatum lost his cool a little bit. Middleton blocked his shot/slapped him on the arm, and took the ball down the other end and hit another shot to cut it to 13. Tatum was T'd up in frustration, and it was a 12-point game.
It was right around this point when Doc put the Bucks into a zone defense. And even with Kristaps Porzingis back on the court, the C's just didn't attack the zone. They did exactly what Doc wanted them to do, which was to settle for three's. From the nine-minute mark to the 2:37 mark, the C's took nine shots – seven of them were three's, plus a 15' footer and a 7' that Jaylen Brown got blocked. Mix in JB's two missed free throws, and over that span, the C's only scored six points on 2-for-9 shooting. Derrick White, in particular, took some ill-advised threes. Milwaukee shaved another nine points off the lead to get within three.
If you were like me, at this point you were having flashbacks to the 2022 NBA Finals, of the Warriors letting the C's shoot away their leads, shaving down the margins until Stephen Curry unhinged his jaw and swallowed the city of Boston whole. But tonight, just as the lead looked its most precarious, Tatum broke the spell. The Bucks had no choice but to put Malik Beasley on Tatum. Tatum grabbed a rebound, and came down the court, and took Beasley to the hoop. He didn't call for a screen like he usually does – he knew he had a mismatch. He just took it to the hoop. Pat Connaughton came over and gave a foul, and Tatum put in two free throws to push the lead to five.
Then he came down and did the same thing on the next possession, getting a lay-up. Then he did it again on the next possession. At this point, Bobby Portis came off of Porzingis to flash help, and Tatum took a step back and took a fadeaway. It missed, but Portis had left Porzingis by his lonesome, and he grabbed the rebound and dunked it back home. The C's had pushed the lead back to seven on the strength of Tatum breaking the spell of Milwaukee's zone and taking it into the heart of their defense.
This wasn't where the game ended, necessarily. Damian Lillard and Portis kept fighting and made it interesting down the stretch, but that's not the takeaway here. The takeaway here is that Jayson Tatum did what we need to see him do. In a suddenly tense game when you could lose your composure and let a winnable game slip away, he measured his opponent and attacked them in the way that gave his team the best chance to win, rather than just taking what the other team was giving his team.
After the Cleveland game, someone in the media asked Tatum if he wanted more of these pressure-filled reps as the playoffs approached, and he responded with something to the effect of, "No, I don't want to blow 20-point leads." Tonight, the C's were on the verge of doing just that, and may have except for Tatum breaking Milwaukee's spell. It wasn't the first game Tatum won for his teammates, but this felt different. Sometimes Tatum wins games simply because his talent is just undeniable. This was a game he won by thinking his way through the problem. And that's potentially a very, very exciting development.
Did You Know that Brook Lopez Has Never Committed a Foul?
The NBA is full of great players who complain after foul calls. Jayson Tatum got T'd up for doing so tonight. Bam Adebayo, Luka Doncic, LeBron James, and plenty more players have some amazing reactions after foul calls. But there are also definitely times when they raise their hand and say, "yup, that was me." Or nod and walk away. You know who I've never seen do that? Brook Lopez. Never ever ever. It's always a hand waive, an incredulous look, or when he's really exasperated, he bends over at the waist, and stays hunched over for a couple of seconds, before he stands back up and starts in on the refs. It's the kind of quirk that probably endears him to Bucks fans, but it's much less endearing when watching it from the other side. You commit lots of fouls, Brook.
Mucking It Up
Until they found success with the zone defense in the fourth quarter, Milwaukee's only real defensive strategy was clutching and grabbing. Khris Middleton, in particular, committed two fouls where he literally just wrapped up a Boston shooter and didn't let them shoot (he doesn't have much choice, really, he can't guard anybody at this point).
The possession that was most emblematic of this strategy was with ~2:38 left in the third quarter. Boston got a rebound and came down in transition. Derrick White passed it to Jaylen Brown, who drove past Danilo Gallinari. Gallinari tried to grab him at the perimeter, and Brown fought through on his way to the bucket. He would have had a clear path, but both Damian Lillard and Pat Connaughton collapsed and grabbed him as he put up his shot. The foul was whistled on Lillard, but it could have gone to any of them.
It'll be interesting to see if this will be how Milwaukee plays things when Giannis Antetokounmpo is back in the lineup, but it seemed like the Bucks were willing to test the refs' newfound desire to swallow the whistles. It didn't fully work in this game, but it's a strategy that has given Tatum and Brown fits in the past, and it was definitely that behavior from Middleton that frustrated Tatum into picking up a technical foul tonight. It's something the C's will have to prep for and stay calm through when the games get important.