A surprising change in Kyrie's workload, Terry Rozier's shooting woes and other Bucks-Celtics observations

A mix of leftover thoughts and observations after taking a second look at the Bucks’ hard-fought 98-97 win over the Celtics on Thursday night in Milwaukee

1. Terry Rozier’s ongoing struggles in Milwaukee remain an issue

Boston’s inability to shoot on the road nearly got them eliminated in the first round of the postseason last year and those struggles continued on Thursday night with a key reserve in Terry Rozier. He had a subpar night on the offensive end (2-of-8 FG, 0-of-4 from 3-point range), missing a number of wide-open looks from beyond the arc in the midst of the C’s worst shooting night of the year (38 percent from the field). He was far from the only culprit in the loss, but the problematic trend with the fourth-year guard is his inability to knock down open perimeter shots in road games against the Bucks.

Dating back to last year’s regular season and postseason, Rozier is now shooting 20 percent from 3-point range (7-of-31) over his past five games in Milwaukee. That’s a very troublesome pattern for this group seeing that Rozier is one of the guys the Bucks will concede open looks to in order to shut down Kyrie Irving and Boston’s other top scoring weapons. Brad Stevens has to find someone who can knock down a respectable clip of wide-open looks in tough environments on the road for this team to succeed in the postseason, particularly against a Bucks team that is so tough to score on at the rim. Rozier will keep getting opportunities, but at some point, Stevens needs to try something else or hand a bigger chunk of Rozier’s minutes to Jaylen Brown, Gordon Hayward (when healthy) or Marcus Smart. Whoever has the hot hand on a given night should play more.

2. Marcus Smart’s insertion into the starting five really pays dividends in the Bucks matchup

The biggest problem the Celtics had in defending the Bucks last postseason was finding a way to slow down Khris Middleton on a nightly basis. He frequently preyed on smaller Celtics in mismatches while also getting the shots he wanted against bigger wings like Brown and Jayson Tatum. On Thursday night, Stevens wanted to prevent him from getting into that rhythm and he put one of the biggest pests in the NBA on him in Smart. The move kept Middleton (15 points) contained for most of the night, as Smart fought through screens and hung tough against the sharpshooter in all areas of the floor, limiting him to scoring just five points (2-of-5 FG) on the 23 possessions he guarded him. I’d expect the C’s to continue with this matchup if and when they see the Bucks in the postseason since it should allow them to stay honest with their other individual assignments on the floor while also preventing Middleton from burning them too much on the offensive end.

3. Al Horford doing it all against elite competition

The Celtics have responded very well as a team after their two ugly losses to the Lakers and Clippers two weeks ago and that’s been more apparent with Al Horford than anyone else on this team. Lost amid the tight loss on Thursday night was one of the best all-around regular season performances we’ve seen from Horford in 2018-19, with 21 points, 17 rebounds (season-high), five assists, three blocks and two steals. Over the past three games against the likes of Giannis Antetokounmpo, Andre Drummond and Joel Embiid, Horford is averaging 20.3 points, 13 rebounds, 6 assists, and 2.3 steals per game on 47.4 percent shooting from the field and 50 percent shooting from 3-point range. While it was a tough start to the season for the center as he dealt with a bout of runner’s knee, the fact that Horford can still raise his game to this level on the road consistently bodes very well for this team come May and June.

4. Kyrie’s minutes keep going up

It’s an interesting subplot to watch over the past month or so how exactly Brad Stevens has handled Kyrie Irving’s minutes between rest days and injuries. The Celtics obviously had a plan early in the season (just like last year) to keep Irving’s minutes down to the low 30s on a nightly basis in order to help preserve him for the long haul. However, it was evident in Irving’s interview with Rachel Nichols that he wasn’t pleased with his playing time, particularly with the C’s struggling to match their expectations in the win-loss column. With the rumors swirling about his free agency future, it seems Stevens has deferred to Irving more and given him a bigger share of minutes in most games. He played a season-high 41 minutes in regulation on Thursday night and has now played 36 or more minutes in eight of his last nine healthy games, which is far above his season average of 32.6 minutes per game.

Stevens addressed the big minutes on Thursday night after he gave Irving just 90 seconds of rest in the second half total.

“We’re down four at the start of the fourth, and down eight with 10:32, so I decided to go back to him quickly,” Stevens said. “And he had a little bit of a rhythm. He had struggled to get his rhythm going. And like I said, everybody looked rusty, but then he got it going towards the end of the third, so I didn’t want him to sit very long.”

“I mean, I’m ready to play them,” Irving said of his increased workload. “I don’t really need to talk to Brad about it. I think he does a great job of managing the game, so I just play off that.”

Chalk this one up perhaps to the team wisely deferring to Irving in order to keep him happy in the midst of a big decision looming From an on-court standpoint, they should benefit from it as well, as long as he remains fresh enough for the postseason. Some blowout wins and strategic nights off against inferior opponents should help ease Irving’s burden on this front as he tackles more on a nightly basis.

5. The Gordon Hayward X-factor

The Bucks' bench soundly outplayed the Celtics last night and that’s not a huge surprise given the absences of Aron Baynes and Gordon Hayward. Baynes will be another useful body to throw at Giannis Antetokounmpo all series long in a potential playoff matchup, even though his usage will be limited in the minutes that Antetokounmpo doesn’t play since all of the Bucks bench bigs are shooters now. Hayward, on the other hand, matches up quite nicely with Ersan Ilyasova and Nikola Mirotic and has the potential to make both of them pay for their subpar perimeter defense when he’s playing at the 4. On a night where we saw Guerschon Yabusele(?!?) getting some second-half minutes and Rozier struggle mightily with his shooting, the Celtics should feel a bit better about having a couple of valuable weapons to unveil next time out that could be able to tilt the tight matchup in their favor.