Everything you needed to know about the Boston Celtics overtime win over the Milwaukee Bucks, with BSJ insight and analysis.
With Giannis Antetokounmpo a late scratch for the Milwaukee Bucks, some of the steam was sapped from the game. That seemed pretty evident in the Celtics performance which alternated between fine and sloppy for most of the night. They gave up 50% shooting to a team missing Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton, and Brook Lopez and trailed by four at the half.
They picked it up a bit in the third quarter behind 12 points from Marcus Smart, who also tossed some beautiful passes, to help Boston take a seven point lead into the fourth. The quarter started ugly, with neither team able to hit much from the field, but the Celtics still managed to take a six point lead with 1:30 left. They couldn’t get the stops they needed, though, and Milwaukee got hot to force overtime.
It was all Dennis Schröder in the OT. He scored 8 of Boston’s 14 points in the overtime, and Boston flies to Cleveland tonight with a nine point win in their back pockets.
HEADLINES
Schröder bailed them out: There’s no other way to say it. On a night where things felt off, Schröder came through by scoring 3 points off his career-high.
"It was big. We needed it,” Jayson Tatum said. “I said it the other day. When we got guys out, whether it's (Jaylen Brown) or whatever, rather than myself, more guys are going to have an opportunity. We definitely needed it tonight."
Late Giannis scratch was a problem: A team prone to letting down found an easy excuse to let down when they found out Giannis Antetokounmpo wasn’t playing in this game.
“Yeah, there’s always a natural letdown,” Ime Udoka said. “That was the message to the guys before the game ... the first message was don’t let it be an inclination to let down naturally when a guy’s missing. The other guys are going to play hard, they’re going to come with a nothing to lose attitude. And they did that.”
TURNING POINT
Schröder missed Robert Williams on a roll for what would have been an easy lob (he even made a face on the floor acknowledging as much). But then made a jumper anyway, then collected a Williams block on the other end and took it in for a layup to make it 116-111 with 1:30 left in the overtime.
SECOND GUESS
Udoka played nine guys, eight in the second half, and only Josh Richardson for a really significant amount of time. We’ll have to see how he approaches the back-to-back in Cleveland tomorrow night. Maybe the guys who didn’t play much in this one will play more tomorrow. For now, it seems a little tough to have a short rotation in a November back-to-back.
THREE UP
Dennis Schröder: He dropped 38 points on 16-27 shooting, including 3-9 from 3 (which was a toenail away from being 4-10), 8 rebounds, and 3 assists. He had 6 more turnovers, which he acknowledges is a problem. But on night where the Celtics needed someone to step up, he was the guy to save the C’s.
Robert Williams: Another 6 offensive rebounds for Williams, who is second in the NBA in offensive rebounding. He’s been great on tap-outs where he’s not actually grabbing boards but tapping them back out to the perimeter.
Marcus Smart: His 12 point third quarter stretch was part of the best stretch of the night for the Celtics. They couldn’t capitalize on that, but he helped give them a lead that should have held for the rest of the night. He also threw some great passes, one of which you’ll see shortly.
TWO DOWN
Josh Richardson: I really just need to sit down and watch Josh Richardson’s minutes over again. He made some nice plays but I just keep leaving games thinking he’s hurt more than helped.
Aaron Nesmith: He made his first shot of the game and I thought “here we go.” It was his only make of the game, and he only played 5:30 in the game, and not in the second half. I thought he was playing alright, but I guess Ime disagrees.
ONE SO/SO
Jayson Tatum: This was a big debate in my head. He finished with 27 points, 11 rebounds, 1 assists, and 2 blocks. After extolling the virtues of his aggressive assisting, Tatum played passively on both ends. I originally had him in the “up,” but that didn’t feel right. Then I had him in the “down,” and that also didn’t feel right.
Tatum hit big shots and made a couple of big defensive plays, but they were to make up for some bad shots and lazy help defense. Tatum had the raw counting numbers, but the overall impact wasn’t fully there.
TOP PLAY
MARCUS SMART YOU ARE UNREAL FOR THIS PASS! pic.twitter.com/PK6Deqsd8c
— Celtics on NBC Sports Boston (@NBCSCeltics) November 13, 2021
ONE TAKE KARALIS WILL PROBABLY REGRET LATER
A win is a win: There will be a lot of “this should have been easier,” after this game and it’s all justified. Yes, it should have been easier. The letdown is disappointing and the blown six point lead with 1:30 left was not great. I’m not going to say any of that is wrong.
But the win still counts the same as a blowout, and in the relentless march of the NBA schedule, we’ll forget how these W’s & L’s happened when we count them up in a few months.
“Give them credit. They still have good players,” Udoka said. “I’ve been on the other side plenty of times, especially in San Antonio where we’d sit guys and won games all the time. Teams do have a natural letdown. We tried to fight that early and I felt like we were a little off in the first half but it got better in the second half.”
Udoka said he was disappointed in the first half performance, especially since he told them not to overlook the rest of the Bucks just because Giannis was out. They didn't get the message and made this tougher than it needed to be, especially with the back-to-back tomorrow.
The Celtics don't see it that way.
"Nah, just try to win at any cost. Not looking past tonight, thinking about tomorrow,” Tatum said. “Regardless of who's playing, these guys, they know how to play. Obviously, most of these guys, they won a championship last year. So we knew it wasn't going to be easy regardless of who we was playing."
Just remember that in every NBA season, there are games teams win that they deserved to lose, and games teams lose that they deserved to win. I’m not thrilled with the process element of this game, but it was a win. Now let’s see if they can fix that stuff tomorrow.