The Celtics' Game 1 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks can be whittled down to three distinct areas:
Turnovers
3-point shot selection
Bad decisions/missed opportunities
I’ve decided to do three separate pieces to highlight each of these areas (rather than one gigantic one. You don’t eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner at once, right?). There will be overlapping themes to all of three of these since they're all offensive-focused.
Grab your Pepto -- let’s look at these turnovers. I didn’t include the offensive fouls (except for one important one).
Jaylen Brown put himself in jail here by over-penetrating. This Celtics offense has to be incredibly precise. This has to be a surgical offensive attack.
Brown was not that on this drive, nor was he for basically the whole game. The instant Wesley Matthews jab steps, the ball has to go to Jayson Tatum in the corner.
Now, Matthews is jabbing to recover to the pass, but that's ok, because Tatum's job is to then keep attacking and hit Milwaukee with attack after attack.
“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,” Ime Udoka said after the game. “We need multiple penetrations, multiple paint touches.”
We’ll get into the permutations of plays like this in the third piece. Right now, the focus is on Brown’s bad decision to give up his dribble, jump stop, and not give himself an outlet. On top of it, he telegraphs the cross-court pass and the much-taller Brook Lopez gets a hand on it.
Look at how all five Bucks are in the paint here. If Brown had kept his dribble, he could have reset the play. If he had kept his balance, he might have been able to toss a fake or two and at least spin his way out of trouble and find someone to reset the play. There are 17 seconds left on the shot clock. No reason to panic.
But Brown loses both and commits to a soft jump pass that is deflected. The running theme with these plays will be the Bucks scoring a lot off these turnovers.
Let’s start with this: Nice defensive play by Bobby Portis. The Bucks send two to the ball and Portis’ length forces the Derrick White turnover.
The issue with this play is the pick and roll is terrible. The whole timing of the play seems off.
Here’s what’s supposed to happen: The Celtics know Milwaukee will send two to the ball, so Al Horford is supposed to pop and get the ball back from White. While that's happening, Payton Pritchard is setting what looks like a screen for Grant Williams for the corner 3, but that's a ruse. When Horford gets the ball back, Pat Connaughton rushes up to take Horford. Right before the ball is turned over, you can see Williams start to set a screen on Jevon Carter to free up Pritchard for a catch-and-shoot corner 3.
From there, the play could go anywhere. Shoot the 3, dump it to Grant for the layup, Jaylen cuts behind the help for a lob… all sorts of things can happen. Except Grayson Allen’s pursuit of White wasn’t delayed at all. The pick is supposed to slow Allen down and it doesn’t in the least bit.
That's on White for being too high up on the play and on Horford for not adjusting his screen angle to be a deterrent. The play was setting up perfectly, but Allen being on top of White, along with Portis’ length, blew it up, and it’s a layup the other way.
The timing is off here again. Also, Daniel Theis is fouled. But if the timing was better, Theis would have caught the ball and the foul would have been further up on the arm and a more obvious call. Even if it’s not called, there are kicks to Grant Williams in the corner and, more obviously, Tatum up top.
Again, we’re looking for surgical precision and we’re not getting it.
I’m the first person to lament fastbreaks where players automatically flare out to the corners, but this is one such break where that spacing is necessary.
So step one in this turnover is that the spacing is awful. Step two is that Tatum drives with no clue what he wants to do. Are you foul hunting? Are you dishing? What’s the plan once you lower the shoulder? At this point, sell the grift and go up. Giannis Antetokounmpo is backpedaling, which means his jump will be awkward and his arms might come down.
Obviously it’s hard for me to say. I’m a, ahem, portly older gentleman typing on a keyboard the day after a game and repeatedly watching the play in slow motion.
But this is what makes MVP candidates what they are. If you’re driving, and putting a shoulder into Antetokounmpo’s chest, then finish the play.
I mean, c’mon guys. Pay attention. This play just shows you these guys aren’t mentally sharp in this game. They were lucky Milwaukee made an equally stupid play to give it back.
Allen slaps the loose dribble away from Brown, but where was Brown expecting to go on that drive?
I get that he sees a lane to the basket initially…
…but also, he doesn’t really have the step on Allen, Lopez is there to help on the strong side and Giannis is there on the weak side. There are 18 seconds left on the shot clock, you have no passing outlets, and no offensive rebounders.
Forget for a moment that Allen slaps the ball free. He was cooked even if he kept that dribble.
Bad timing here. That needs to be a leading pass. That's a tough pass to make because it has to get through a very active defense on the bounce but also come up to Robert Williams' hands so he doesn’t have to bend down to catch it.
Good idea though. Rob thrives in these situations and I guarantee you that would have been a kick to Marcus Smart and at least a swing to Tatum. It might have even made its way back to Brown.
Plays like this are why the other plays have to be so precise. Jrue Holiday is just going to make some plays like this. The Celtics can’t be screwing around with the ball on these other possessions because a turnover like this one just adds to the pile. And again, Milwaukee is scoring off the miscue.
This is one I can simply chalk up to a good defensive play.
This is another good defensive play but it’s avoidable by being more aware of how the Bucks are going to play these drives. Brown isn’t attacking to collapse the defense. He is trying to score. You don’t put your head down like this if your goal is to see the floor.
That's a lowered shoulder hoping to dislodge Holiday and see if he can get to the rim. Just kick it to Horford in the corner, let him drive, then replace him in the corner and maybe get the ball back.
Once the head is down, the awareness goes away.
Tough angle for that pass, and too much heat on that fastball. No chance for Horford to make that catch.
Throw that lob, Al. That pass was way behind Tatum. That needed to be lofted to the corner of the rim so Tatum could catch it and lay it in. Horford rarely makes that mistake. This one really hurt because it’s a true five-point swing. It should be 89-77 and Boston making one more push instead of 92-77 and the Milwaukee lead growing.
This is the one offensive foul I left in because of this missed opportunity.
By this point, it’s obvious that Brown was of a singular mindset in this game. He wanted to score the ball and his seven turnovers flowed off that one focus. Just kick the ball and trust your teammates to score and make the right play.
Grant Williams either would have had the shot, a swing to Tatum, or a drive against the closeout, which could have resulted in Brown getting the ball back. Instead, Brown was intent on scoring, and he committed the charge.
And finally…
What is this?
I get that he’s falling out of bounds, but what was that little flippy pass thing? Can’t a young athlete of Brown’s abilities compose himself in mid air enough to throw a pass that's a little more accurate?
Brown had a bad game. He had a one-track mind and that mind didn’t seem to be all there. Boston’s live-ball turnovers were soul-crushing in that they almost always led to Milwaukee points. If the Celtics could have added some points on a few of these plays and taken those Bucks points off the board, they would have had a chance in this game.
Luckily, a lot of this is easily cleaned up by being more focused and aware of how the Bucks play defense.
“At times, it felt like all guys tried to do it a little bit on their own, attacking their shot blockers when we know this is a heavy rotation team and we have outlets all over the court,” Udoka said after practice today. “So we took a look at those and saw all the opportunities we missed, and I think we’ll be better for that coming into tomorrow.”
