There's no sugar coating what the Celtics did in the fourth quarter of Game 5. After sprinkling in stretches of dominance, to build a 14-point lead, they turned into Wile E. Coyote and everything blew up in their faces.
The quarter started well enough. A dunk from Al Horford, a Jayson Tatum and-1 layup, and a Payton Pritchard fallaway in the middle of the lane built that big lead. The Celtics were on a 7-0 run and everything was going their way.
Watching it again, it’s hard to believe they blew that game.
But they did. And here’s how:
9:50: Pat Connaughton hits an open 3-pointer. Derrick White and Pritchard got lost in a sea of switches. The defense can’t look like this:
They have to communicate better. They fell asleep.
9:18: After a Tatum dunk, Jrue Holiday hits a 3 in Grant Williams’ face. Good shot. Tip the cap. 95-85 Boston.
8:54: Tatum drives, gets fouled, and makes 1 of 2 free throws. Missed fourth quarter free throws add up. However, Boston is still attacking.
8:38: Milwaukee does a good job getting Giannis Antetokounmpo an easy dunk by clearing out, running a dribble handoff which flows right into an empty corner pick-and-roll with Boston in drop coverage. They're not switching, so when White chases over the top of the screen, there's now no help on the pocket pass to Giannis. Great play. 96-87 Boston.
8:15: Pritchard blows by Grayson Allen for a finish at the rim. Celtics are still, currently, holding Milwaukee off by attacking. They're trading baskets, which isn’t great, but at least they're sort of matching Milwaukee. It’s an 11-point lead. Still time to figure out how to get some stops on the other end.
8:01: Antetokounmpo turnover and then foul. Boston ball up 11. Feeling good.
7:45: Wasted possession. Tatum takes a contested pullup on Bobby Portis with :10 on the shot clock. No movement anywhere on the floor. Grant Williams has position in the lane on Holiday, but isn’t really set up to receive a pass.
7:37: Williams is cross-matched on Connaughton but for some reason feels the need to account for Wesley Matthews cutting. Horford had him and Matthews was never a threat, but the flinch springs Connaughton for an open 3-pointer.
Williams should have been there to run him off the line. 99-90 Bucks. Ime Udoka calls a timeout and lights into Williams coming off the floor.
Williams and Pritchard are out. Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart are in with Tatum, White, and Horford.
7:12: Turnover. Boston actually started to run some offense but Brown simply throws it to a spot where Smart wasn’t. This was a bad turnover. No reason for this one.
7:00: Celtics switching and Brown gets onto Antetokounmpo. He tries to draw the offensive foul but no call. Portis slides in for the first of Milwaukee’s SEVEN offensive rebounds. He’s fouled and hits both. 98-92 Boston. Not feeling quite as good.
6:48: Foul on Portis. Milwaukee’s fifth foul. Boston is now in the penalty and will shoot free throws on every Milwaukee foul moving forward. At least they would have had they drawn any. The two free throws Brown takes are the only penalty-free throws Boston would get in the quarter. He splits them, giving Boston two missed free throws in the fourth quarter.
Side note: obviously life changes a lot with every make or miss, but it’s hard not to think about these two points when Portis’ putback puts the Bucks up 1. One could argue that just making these two free throws and keeping all else the same wins the game because the Bucks would still have to foul after Portis’ make.
Anyway, 99-92 Celtics to this point.
6:26-6:11: White blocks Antetokounmpo and brings it the other way. Critical stop for Boston here and a chance to stop the bleeding. White probes the defense and finds Horford has a mismatch on Connaughton, but White overshoots the pass and it’s a turnover. Another missed opportunity to put some distance between them and Milwaukee.
6:03: Matthews 3-pointer. Tatum had the contest. Matthews makes the corner 3. 99-95 Boston and … uh oh …
Side note: Two turnovers change the whole dynamic of this game. What happens if Smart catches that pass at the top of the key? What happens if Horford gets the ball against Connaughton? Could be anything, really. With Horford in this particular play, I can easily see a foul and two free penalty free throws. That's a five-point swing. 101-92 against a set Celtics defense is a lot different than 99-92 against a retreating C’s D trying to stop penetration and being a half-second late on a closeout in the corner.
5:38: Tatum misses a shot at the rim. Might have been a foul on Connaughton. Might not have been.
5:23- 5:00: Boston gets a stop and a rebound. Celtics run down the clock and Tatum hits a tough midrange shot. Not great offense, but a big make. 101-95.
4:43: Antetokounmpo gets an offensive rebound against Brown. This is one of the perils of switching. Brown can’t muscle Giannis out of the way. Tatum could have probably done more to help here, even if it’s just jumping to tip it way.
4:21: Brown goes hard left to the rim but he’s defended well. He puts up a tough shot that's too hard off the window. Finally some level of attacking but it comes up empty
4:10: Holiday hits a jumper over Smart. Total iso play, Smart was there, but Holiday buried it. 101-99.
3:47-3:37: They try to go inside again, which is good, but Giannis blocks Horford. He’s done that a lot in this series. Celtics keep the ball and Tatum buries the midrange shot.
3:31: Smart draws an offensive foul on Antetokounmpo. Finally some momentum for Boston. 103-99 with possession.
This is a critical spot for Boston. Giannis is frustrated. Boston takes a timeout and come out in a regular set that gets Tatum the ball at the top of the key. The shot clock is down to 3.5 and Tatum getting the ball is the only pass that was made. This comes down to “will their best player make the shot.” He didn’t. He missed a midrange fade on Antetokounmpo.
Horford could have cut baseline and tried to pin Portis deep.
Tatum could have faked and jumped into Giannis to draw the foul.
Neither happened.
3:00-2:33: I thought this was going to be the sequence that won Boston the game. The Bucks get two offensive rebounds and can’t cash in. It’s Celtics ball with 2:30 to go and they're up four. They’ve had some empty possessions, but here’s another opportunity to make them pay.
2:12: Al Horford putback dunk. 105-99. This absolutely should have been the ballgame. Period. Full stop.
Of course, this is the third thing I’ve said could have ended it for Boston. Milwaukee calls timeout, giving them just one
1:44-1:40: Boston gets their stop. Portis misses a corner 3-pointer but Matthews gets the offensive board and Giannis hits a 3. What?
Watch this play.
I’ve never been more upset with Smart. His absurdly demonstrative “ow my face” thing took himself completely out of the play. The long rebound goes to Matthews, which sometimes happens. Missed 3-pointers can lead to long boards. But that's the spot Smart vacated so he could run along the baseline and be completely unavailable.
Want to snap your head back to accentuate a foul? Fine. That's part of the game now. Going from the dots to photogs to sell the play with less than two minutes to go in a crucial Game 5? I’m not buying any excuses there.
Matthews was at the dots, the spot Smart vacated, to get the rebound. Brutal.
Antetokounmpo hitting the 3? That's the Basketball Gods at work. If Smart just stayed with the play, there's more of a fight for the ball, maybe Boston even clears it. Instead, they pay the biggest price.
105-102 Boston.
1:40-1:19: Boston walks the ball up the floor. Tatum gets the mismatch on Connaughton and just takes a contested jumper. No ball movement. No cuts. Not picks on the weak side. No nothing from the Celtics. Just stand and watch. That has never worked all year long. It didn’t work here.
1:09: A gift. Portis loses the ball, turns it over, and Boston has a chance to get some breathing room.
:50 - :42: Smart runs the clock down and runs a pick-and-roll with Horford. He actually was attacking, but he also lost the ball. Gift reciprocated. Holiday hits the 3-pointer to tie the game.
The good Celtics would have made that play a drive-and-kick to Tatum, a swing to Grant Williams, an attack on a closeout, a Horford cut from the top, and a game-sealing dunk.
The bad Celtics did that.
:31: Tatum finally attacks. He draws the foul. Where was this before? 107-105 Boston.
:24.2: Foul on Williams. I think Giannis slipped, but Grant’s contact with his right arm would have lost the challenge. If Williams keeps his hands up, Giannis would have simply slipped, the ball would have gone out of bounds, and it would have been Boston’s ball. At worst, they could have won the challenge and had a center court jump ball.
It’s a little thing, but it’s the little things that win games. That should have been Boston’s ball, but there was no way to challenge this.
14.2: Another foul on Williams. It’s a legit foul. Why he tried to go for the block there I don’t know.
11.4: Smart and Brown knock the ball out of each others’ hands. Just plain ol’ dumb luck. Portis is there in the right place at the right time. With Giannis’ one made free throw, it’s 108-107 Milwaukee.
6.3: Let’s watch this last play together.
Horford is supposed to set a down screen for Tatum. You see Udoka gesturing to them during and after the play.
Meanwhile, I think Brown is supposed to set a screen for Smart to come up and get the ball. When Smart gestures to his right side, Brown turns and looks. I think Smart was trying to distract his defender, but it was Brown who took the bait and missed the screen.
So Horford was late, leaving Tatum out of the play. Brown was late meaning Smart couldn't get the ball and curl around to the center of the court, where I assume he was supposed to hit Tatum with a good matchup and the floor spread to make some kind of play.
Smart, up against a five-second violation, gets open. Okay, fine. Good adlib there.
Then Smart drives. He sees the baseline open and he goes for it. Again, totally fine freelance here. There are 11 seconds on the clock, he got the ball inbounds and he attacks in an open part of the floor.
However, this is where I have an issue. Smart knows he’s facing the Bucks, and the one thing the Bucks do is swarm the ball, especially as it gets closer to the rim. He simply should have known that once he got past Connaughton, someone else was going to be there.
Holiday made an amazing play, but Smart will be the first person to tell you KYP -- know your personnel. Holiday swooping in was the least surprising element of that play. Throw a fake, reverse course, change directions … something to buy a second of time. Brown was cutting down the middle on a baseline drive. Give him the ball. That would have either been a dunk or another dump off to Horford for a dunk of his own.
5.9: After two Connaughton free throws, Smart gets the inbound pass. He’s been killed by a lot of people for not finding Tatum on the right side, but you can see he loses control of the ball before he can make that play.
I’ll fault Smart for being too out of control there, but also with six seconds left, a full court to go, and no timeouts, I’m not going to go too hard on him. The damage was done prior to this, and it wasn’t all the offensive rebounds.
In fact, I’d argue there were plenty of chances to win this game even with the offensive rebounds. Looking at this whole fourth quarter again, I see Boston giving the game away and the Bucks out-working the Celtics. The few times Boston actually ran offense and attacked, they did good things.
It’s just another iteration of the same lesson that's been reinforced all season long: Do things the wrong way and lose, do things the right way and win. Boston’s strength has always been in its execution.
They didn’t execute in the fourth quarter. They could have. If they execute in Game 6, they have a chance to bring this back to Boston for a Game 7.