The last few minutes of the Celtics' loss to the Bucks was tough, but Ime Udoka didn’t think it was as much of an issue as the rest of us.
“I thought we got excellent shots,” he said after the game. “Jayson missed two wide open threes, Marcus missed one, Jaylen missed a solid pull-up. But even more than the fourth quarter, I thought our third was a problem defensively. To hold them to 22, 25 and 27 in the first, second and fourth, I felt we did enough. But that 43-point third quarter really hurt us. Offensively at the end, you get wide open looks and make them it’s a different story.”
I kind of see things a little differently.
Of course, you don’t want to give up a 43 point quarter. There are things the Celtics could have done a lot better defensively and the coach is right about that. However, I do think a lot of that third quarter had a distinct “the reigning champs turned it way up against a team missing half its roster to Health and Safety protocols” vibe.
And while I don’t disagree that they got makeable shots by players who should absolutely make them, I did think the offense down the stretch was poorly executed and the shots they got were a function of having two very talented wing players.
Basically, Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum made things too tough on themselves, and they displayed a lack of trust in their teammates that they’ll have to embrace. There is a good offense in them if they just trust that their teammates will make the right plays.
Let’s look at the film.
Brown gets a great look. It's a wide open shot he makes all the time, so of course everyone is going to live with that shot.
However, there's room for improvement here. Look at that wide open lane there. Jrue Holiday has to turn his hips because of the crossover so he's no threat to slide in for the charge.
Wesley Matthews is leaning in trying to dig. This is a great chance to get into the lane and then kick it back out to Tatum who will be even more open due to the attention Brown has drawn. From there, all kinds of possibilities open up. Matthews will overreact and Tatum can blow by him on the drive, Marcus Smart would cycle up from the corner and Jaylen relocates to the corner for a potential wide open corner 3.
You might think this is a nit-picky play, but look at the situation. You're up six with less than 3:00 to play and they're gaining fast. Making them work those extra rotations on defense takes more of a toll on their legs. Pulling them out of position a couple of times and getting an open look makes it much more likely for them to make a mistake and take their focus away from the comeback. If you get them looking at one another and talking about who missed a rotation, that's mental energy spent on something other than pushing the ball.
Is the shot they get in my scenario better than the shot Brown got? No, probably not. But the Bucks will have spent nine more seconds playing defense and maybe even more, had a shot fallen, trying to figure out who messed up, and there's value in that when you're trying to close out a game.
Here's another one that, in a vacuum, looks like a decent shot. Tatum has a clean look here. However, so does Payton Pritchard, and Marcus Smart is making sure of it.
Smart recognizes Pritchard's man is wayyyyy too deep in the lane. Pritchard was shooting pretty well all night. This, for Tatum, should have been one dribble between the defenders and a pass to Pritchard for a very, very wide open 3-pointer.
I can hear some people saying that they'd rather have Tatum taking that shot than Pritchard, but I'll remind those of you ready to type that into the comments that two of the biggest shots in this game came from Wesley Matthews. On a team with Khris Middleton and Giannis Antetokounmpo, they gladly kicked it out to Matthews twice down the stretch, including the shot to take the lead with :30 to go.
Pritchard is on the floor there for a reason. There are plenty of opportunities for the Jays to close this game out. There are also plenty of opportunities for them to trust their teammates to make open shots.
Further, the more you make those guys threats on the floor, the more opposing defenses have to respect them as such. Nothing in the way Tatum and Brown played these last few minutes does that. If I'm the opposing team, I will just load up on them down the stretch and ignore everyone else until they prove I should do otherwise.
This is about having less tunnel vision and being able to read the whole floor in real time. As Tatum makes his drive, Jrue Holiday is already telegraphing his double team. Tatum needs to see that and, as he makes his spin, identify Holiday and make the pass to Romeo Langford.
This will either be a Langford 3-pointer or a swing to Smart for a corner 3.
There is some element of "this is what Milwaukee wants them to do, John" going on here. Mike Budenholzer might read this and say "hell yeah, please pass it to Langford in the clutch as often as you want." But this is more about Tatum reading the defender, almost like a quarterback reading the MIKE linebacker.
They've worked to get the switch, but Holiday is their version of Smart, and he's always looking to pounce. An added level of awareness is necessary to keep that possession alive, but so too is the mentality of being open to passing there.
Tatum has made great strides in his playmaking, but he very clearly is driving to score here, so he's basically shut other options out of his brain.
At 35%, Langford isn't exactly a knockdown shooter. Maybe at full strength there would have been a better option there (or it's up to Brad Stevens to go find one), but a wide open Langford look is obviously better than coughing it up.
This last one is less about what I've been talking about and more about Tatum and Brown learning how to work off one another.
I've been flat out begging for Tatum and Brown to run pick and roll together, and we're finally starting to see some.
Now ... they just have to learn how to actually run it properly.
This play calls for Tatum to roll to that big, juicy, open spot in the middle of the floor.
The shot Jaylen got here is totally fine. If he makes it, I might not even be writing this piece. That's how sports works. But this one isn't about the shot, necessarily.
If Jaylen Brown is going to be your crunch-time ballhandler, then he needs to learn how to make this read. He put his head down to turn the corner because he's a scorer looking for daylight. That's who he is.
The challenge now for Brown in this position is to make reads and the right play, especially if he's running this with Tatum. And the challenge for Tatum is to make the right read as well.
The instant he set that screen and he got behind Holiday, the lightbulb needed to go off for him to roll hard. At the same time, Brown needs to have his head up, even as he's looking for that corner to turn, to see if the guy who set the pick got open.
Brown drove and got a good baseline look. I have no problem with that. Tatum would have gotten the ball with an even more wide open look, and more options.
There were 20 seconds on the clock. A swing to Smart conceivable becomes a swing to Pritchard and now defenders are flying everywhere. There is time for Pritchard to fake, drive, and get it back to Tatum or Brown for an even better look.
The simplest way to look at this finish is to say your best players should have made shots, and this is true. However, when a team is playing with a lead and holding off a hard-charging opponent, they need to make that opponent work hard with good ball movement and give up good looks to get great ones. The best teams don't always just tell their stars to get buckets, they ask them to make plays.
Tatum and Brown could have made few buckets and changed the tone of this Christmas night. That's for sure. But a little more trust in their teammates to make the right plays themselves could have resulted in even better looks and a very merry Christmas ride to Minnesota.