There's nothing like that first fastball after spending seven innings looking at knuckleballs.
The Milwaukee Bucks came into the TD Garden Sunday afternoon on a mission to strike first, and that they did, smacking the Celtics with a level of defense they haven't seen in a long time.
“To have 89 points and lack of penetration and paint points is obviously alarming, so we have to figure that out,” Ime Udoka said after the Game 1 loss. “But we know who they are defensively and I think their physicality more than anything caught us off guard.”
Of course it did. They just spent four games targeting Seth Curry and Kyrie Irving on the perimeter and Nic Claxton at the rim. Sure, there was banging and jostling for position, but nothing like this.
They just weren’t ready for Jrue Holiday, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Brook Lopez.
“It's the playoffs. It's really not the time to be surprised,” Jaylen Brown said. “They’re the defending champs and we got to come out and play basketball. Gotta be ready to go, no matter what the injuries, or whatever it is that we're dealing with.”
They can say that all they want, but facts are facts. This is just like that first 50 degree day in September versus the first 50 degree in March. The one in September feels like Antarctica because no one is used to it. People put on coats and scarves and hats and crank the heat in their cars. In March, 50 degrees is shorts weather because we’ve gotten used to the cold.
There's a reason I asked Udoka on Wednesday if his team would be ready for what Milwaukee brought after a series against a softer Brooklyn defense. He said it was about “understanding that they're not going to beat themselves, they're going to play with a more physical style defensively and we're prepared for that. I think our record and what we've done over the last few months has shown we've seen a lot of really good defensive teams, some really good offensive teams, and we've managed that well.”
They didn’t manage it well enough in Game 1. But instead of taking that and running in a negative direction, Udoka thinks there's something positive to take out of this.
“Not going to use Brooklyn as an excuse for this. We were prepared for what they were going to do,” Udoka said, hinting that the X’s and O’s of Milwaukee’s plan was anticipated. “I felt it’s in a way good to get this dud out of the way offensively, and so to lose a 12-point game when we played that poorly offensively I think bodes well for us. We’ll figure out what we like as far as that, and then I think our poor offense fueled their offense, so a lot of ways to clean up and get better.”
Udoka has been here before, touting late-season close losses as building blocks for his team. Of course, Game 1 of the semifinals against the defending champs might not be where you want these kinds of lessons being learned, but here we are.
The Celtics now understand what they're in for in Game 2. They can adjust their expectations about just how hard they’ll be hit and when those hits are coming. Primarily, the Celtics can’t let the Bucks' defense get into their heads and cause turnovers. Milwaukee scored 27 points off turnovers to Boston’s 6, a 21-point gap that, if closed, could alone swing the results of the next game.
"They were really guarding around at half court. Spread us out. Took us out of some of our sets,” Udoka said. “We obviously have to play with a little bit better poise and not get rushed. At times, those caused some of those turnovers. We felt like we were going up and down a little frantic. … I think that kind of bothered us a little bit.”
And then when Boston did get into a set, they often settled for the first shot, often a 3-pointer, that they could find. It’s almost as if they didn’t want to deal with the physical nature of the game.
“I don’t think our decision-making was great when we got to the basket whether it was a drop-off or kick out for threes,” Udoka said. “We need multiple penetration, multiple paint touches and they did a good job as far as that, and like I said, Jaylen and Jayson (Tatum) didn’t have their best night offensively and missed some easy ones that we normally are going to make, and that combined obviously leads to those numbers.”
If I were writing this story six months ago, I’d use this paragraph to hammer home my distaste for what I saw. This type of performance would have been, once upon a time, a “light them up” kind of situation.
Now? These guys have earned the benefit of the doubt. Udoka’s confidence hasn’t been misplaced so far, and he seems to have that same confidence after Game 1. We all know each game in a seven game series is its own entity, and if he feels good about where his team can go after seeing what he saw, then I’m going to give him the leeway he’s earned; that the team has earned.
However, there isn’t much room for this either. They know what to expect now, and they’ve gotten used to how the sting of that defense feels on their bodies. They will take their extended ice baths and massages and get themselves together to salvage the split and show everyone they belong here.
“You got to have everybody connected and be mentally locked in and be ready to leave it all on the floor,” Brown said. “That's what it comes down to. Who's gonna leave it all out there? We're gonna be that harder-playing team, we just got to stay focused.”