BOSTON -- You don't often get a direct response from the Boston Celtics. It's been more common this season, but they keep things pretty tight-lipped. Game plans run in silence. Adjustments are kept hush-hush. But Wednesday night, they put it all out in the open.
At halftime, the Celtics were up 62-41 over the Milwaukee Bucks, who entered the contest 1-6. Everything was going according to plan, even without Jayson Tatum. Then, the third quarter hit. And it hit like a truck.
Milwaukee poured in 38 third-quarter points. By the 6:50 mark in the fourth quarter, the Bucks had a one-point lead: 92-91. The Celtics' entire cushion had completely evaporated.
Yet by the end of the game, the Celtics were on top. Clutch plays down the stretch carried the Celtics to a 109-102 victory. So... what happened?
Well, through some long, thought-out responses from Joe Mazzulla, Derrick White, and Paul George, we know exactly what happened. There's no theorizing. There's no guesswork. We know.
For the sake of flow, I'm going to break the quotes up into chunks, but each of these statements was made in one fell swoop by each person. Every Mazzulla quote you see was from a single response. The same goes for White and George's quotes.
"They were 7-for-8 in the third, which kind of got them back in it," Mazzulla said. "And that's always tough. You're sitting back there, and you're saying, okay, we're 60, they're 30%. We know they're a very highly talented team, and they usually play five guys that can shoot, and so, you know that they're going to come out and shoot more. We played a part into that by having some empty possessions on offense and some live-ball turnovers, but I think them going for seven for eight in the third obviously played a part in that."
Yeah. That'll do it. Milwaukee couldn't miss from beyond the arc. But why? What did the Celtics do wrong? Well, some of it came out of coverages.
Boston had Queta guarding Milwaukee's power forward for long stretches of this game. It wanted him to help over at the rim. On plays like this one, that strategy backfired. Jaime Jaquez Jr. slithered his way to the top of the key for a three.
The Bucks also capitalized on the Celtics' live-ball turnovers, as Mazzulla mentioned. They grabbed some loose balls, offensive rebounds, and flat-out beat the Celtics' defensive rotations at times.
The shooting was a huge part of Milwaukee's comeback. It lifted the Bucks up in the third. Water certainly found its level, as it usually does.
In the first half, the Celtics shot 10-of-17 (58.8%) from 3-point range. The Bucks shot 10-of-27 (37.0%), but in the first quarter, that number was at 3-of-12 (25.0%). The numbers were inevitably going to even out at least a little bit. But they did more than that. They swung big-time.
Milwaukee's 6-of-8 (75.0%) (not 7-of-8) shooting from deep range in the third quarter was matched by a still-impressive 5-of-11 (45.5%) by the Celtics. But Boston shot just 9-of-24 (37.5%) from the field in the third. Why?
Well, the lack of forced turnovers didn't help. Boston's offense kept trying to make things work in the half-court. The Celtics forced nine Bucks turnovers in the first half but just one in the third quarter. But Milwaukee's defensive shift was the real turning point.
"They played a unique defense where they kind of sat on top of everybody with Turner at the rim and just forced you to either shoot a highly contested pull-up three or pull in and shoot a heavily contested two, and then back at the other end, they were shooting more threes, playing a faster," Mazzulla said. "So, we just had to adjust to that. But in those moments, we just have to be able to execute."
"They upped the pressure," White said. "The ball pressure was high, but then they were also in that deep drop with the big, so it was kind of in between. Do you want to shoot that runner every time down the court, or do you want to kind of work it around? And they were top-locking, so it kind of just changed that a little bit and kind of caught us on our heels to start."
In the first half, the Bucks were definitely trying to pressure the ball, but it wasn't very effective. They shot just 14-of-42 (33.3%) from the field in the first half and, as noted, turned the ball over nine times. More often than not, they were forced to defend on the run. They couldn't set up their defense.
Once the shots stopped falling in the third quarter, that changed. Milwaukee got to double down on its ball pressure and "unique" defense with Myles Turner at the rim.
This is the first play of the second half. Right away, you see rookie Brayden Burries picking up White full-court. As the play develops, look in the corner. Kyle Kuzma is up in George's space at the 3-point line. You can see Turner dropped all the way back into the paint.
White and George fail to connect on a simple pass, ending in a turnover. That was less the Bucks' defense and more the Celtics' mistake. But you can at least get a feel for the Bucks' defensive game plan here. What they're trying to do.
As White said, the shots this defense allows for are often tough floaters. That's exactly what he gets here. But a shot diet of all running, contested floaters isn't going to fly for long stretches.
Again, Burries picks up White full-court. The Bucks are fighting over screens. They're refusing to give the Celtics