Game 3 Could Have Gone Better In My Opinion

There’s getting your ass kicked, and then there’s whatever happened to the Boston Celtics in Game 3. Perhaps in hindsight it may have been a little unrealistic for anyone to think that the Bucks would go winless in this series, especially returning home after laying two eggs in Boston. If you ask me, it seemed like the Celts spent the two days in between games believing their own hype and MIL used the two days to make adjustments. A game like this is why taking the first two at home were so important. This isn’t a situation where the Celts are now down 2-1 facing a tough 3-1 spot if things go south again tomorrow. I’d hate to be in a series like that. It’s important to remember that the Celts are still the drivers of this series, and sometimes getting your dick kicked in like this can be just the sort of wakeup call you need.

And I want to make one thing extremely clear. The Celtics did this to themselves. The officials did not lose them this game. Yes, they were dogshit, but the Celts were in the bonus with like 9 minutes in the 1st quarter and did nothing with it. They lost because they played like absolute dogshit and deserved it. Everything we say this team cannot do in a playoff series against this team they did, so you can’t be all that surprised at the result.

Honestly, I think it’s fair to say that this Celtics team maybe isn’t as good as they were in Game 2, and they certainly are not as bad as we saw last night. Water will always find its level. The goal will be to learn from this and then immediately forget it ever happened. Before we can, we need to talk about it. Those are the rules.

The Good

– Look I won’t lie, when you get dominated like the Celtics did in this game from basically the opening tip, there isn’t much to be happy about. Usually you’re not doing too many things right if you find yourself in that situation. However, it’s times like these that stoolies rely on me to spin. So spin I will.

How about Playoff Al!

A team high 16 points on 7-13 shooting, Horford has picked up right where he left off last playoffs. So far this series he’s averaging 18.7/6.7/3.0 with 59/60% splits, a 146 Ortg and is a net +34, all while maintaining the same usage rate as he had during the season. On a night when no Celtic could make a shot, Al was the only reliable scoring option. I also don’t hate that he led the team in FGA.

– At this point I’ll take anything that looks like improvement from Jayson Tatum. After he struggled in Game 2 he had a bit of a bounce back effort last night with 14/5 on 5-11 shooting

I think we can all agree he needs to be even better if they want to win this series, but for his first playoff game on the road, this wasn’t such a bad performance.  I think moving forward one adjustment Brad can make for Tatum is to get him in easier scoring positions. Despite his 14 points Tatum had just a 93.7 Ortg. If you watched him play he didn’t really start off with the best shot selection. A lot of what we saw were low percentage opportunities. When the Celtics made their only real run of the game in the third quarter, it was because Tatum was finding ways to score in a more efficient way.

– Another thing to keep an eye on is how Brad uses Jaylen. It felt like at times the team went away from giving Jaylen the ball in space and letting him attack the MIL wings. I thought Jaylen did a great job of finishing in the paint, especially in traffic

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If MIL is going to switch like they were last night, the Celtics ability to figure out how to get Jaylen the ball on a mismatch is going to be important.

– It may have gone unnoticed because of how many blocks the Bucks had but Greg Monroe was somewhat effective to tune of 15/12 in his 23 minutes

The Bad

– If someone asked you how you would grade the Celtics energy in the first two games, you would say what, like an 8 out of 10? Maybe 8.5 out of 10? That’s what’s so interesting about the playoffs, it becomes so apparent when one team is enforcing their will. This was something the Celtics did in their first two games, but last night it could not have been more of the opposite. You watch how MIL played, they were active, flying around on defense, making huge momentum effort plays to spark runs, and the offensively they were extremely engaged. The ball was moving, forcing the Celtics to rotate, and given their low energy it didn’t give the Bucks any problems whatsoever. Add in the energy from the crowd and the easiest way to describe this game is that the Bucks clearly wanted it more.

That’s annoying because of who the Celtics are. They got to this point of the season because they outwork you. They bring that energy on the defensive end, and then offensively they move the ball and play smart. Well last night the only thing the Celtics did well was fuel the MIL fire.  Having one of the main causes be an effort issue is never acceptable. This isn’t mid January against the Hawks. This is a playoff series.

– When this team does not have Kyrie Irving, it cannot rely on isolation basketball. Especially given the situation. The Celtics got down early and they panicked. That panic caused guys to fall into bad habits, bad habits that as you can guess, had bad results. The worst thing you can do when you’re facing a team that was on a roll like MIL, is give up easy baskets on one end, and then hold the ball and isolate into a bad shot on the other, giving your opponent an easy break.

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The Celtics finished with 17 assists on 32 baskets. Only one player had more than 2 assists. Now you could say this was because everyone missed. Here’s why I disagree. Take Rozier for example, in Game 2 when the offense was thriving, he had 70 passes, and Horford 53. Last night? Just 59 for Terry and 37 for Al. The ball did not move like it had in the previous series, and unfortunately the isolation from guys like Terry and Morris and Tatum wasn’t there.

– The Bucks were 27th in 3PM this season. In this game, they made 16 3PM.

– It’s not often that the Celtics will dominate the rebounding battle, win the points in the paint battle, win the second chance battle, the fast break battle, and take 13 more FTA and still lose. That’s some bullshit

– Call me crazy, but it’s hard to win when the largest lead you have at any point in the game is 1 point. In fact, once the Celtics got down 22-11 with 4:10 in the first quarter, they not ONCE got the score to under double digits again. That’s pathetic.

– For a team that prides itself on defense, they have not played much of it in this series. The Bucks finished with 57/48% splits, and this tweet from Grande sums it up perfectly

Even I’m man enough to admit the Celtics have themselves a big time Kris Middleton problem. They have absolutely no answer for him and have not even remotely slowed him down at any point in this series. That has to change, and has to change quickly.

The Ugly

– A nightmare start for Terry Rozier turned into a very forgettable night. His 5 TOs in the first quarter set the tone, and put the Celts in a hole they couldn’t climb out of. His 2-7 shooting (1-5) performance only magnified things, and his 126 Drtg didn’t help either. If we can be honest, the defensive effort from everyone was pathetic. A 132.4 team rating? That is horrific. I am digusted just reading that number. Shame on you for making me feel this way Celtics damn.

We all know that if you turn the ball over against this team, it’s a wrap. Well after taking care of the ball in the first two games, the Celts finished 16, but really when you add all the easy points they got off block shots it feels like more. The Celtics had no idea how to get around that length, and the result was as expected.

– It was incredible, but I hope to never see a first quarter like this again. I mean 10/12% splits? 8 TOs and just 2 FG? I did not think it was possible for an NBA playoff team to go 2-19 in a quarter. We’ve seen A LOT of really bad quarters offensively from this team over the course of the season, but I have never seen anything like that. It was as if they completely forgot they were professional basketball players. Unbelievable.

– I’m just going to leave this here

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I think if you’re a Celtic fan as long as you realize it wasn’t why they lost, you can be a little frustrated with how they were officiated last night. Scott Foster is such a fucker. Between the blatant miscalls, to the late whistles, they certainly didn’t make things easy. Again, the Celts blew their chances in that first quarter, but you can’t look at that game and say the refs weren’t bad for both teams. It just so happened that they were a little more favorable to MIL. Just like they were a little more favorable to BOS when in BOS. The NBA wants this series to go as long as possible, so assigning Scott Foster a ref who home teams won 62% of his games, wasn’t all that surprising.

– For me, this game really changed when Aron Baynes fouled Thon Maker late in the third quarter on that three. He missed, and the Celts were about to go on the break to perhaps cut the lead down to 12 with plenty of time left. Instead, it allowed MIL to build it back up to 16, and then they went on  a little mini run to essentially kill that run heading into the fourth quarter. Such a huge momentum play I can’t say I’m even remotely over it.

– I hope Brad has learned his lesson when he doesn’t play Yabu until the game was over. This was the equivalent of Belichick benching Malcolm Butler in my humble opinion.

– Don’t be mad at the Bucks for firing off confetti and streamers despite still being down 2-1. They know this might be their only home win for the rest of the season, what are they going to do, NOT fire them? Come on, they earned it given the ass whooping they handed out.

– Gross.

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So my advice would be to forget this game even happened. Win on Sunday and who will even care about this. As I always say, you can’t win in 6 without losing twice, so whatever. Shit happens. Let’s see if Brad can counter their counter and really take control of this series. Only one more day, let’s go.