Bucks best Celts late
Rattled C’s seek to adjust
Brad Stevens has stated the obvious a lot over the last two days. With Gordon Hayward in surgery last night, the Celtics coach was going to need more from everyone else.
In that respect we’re not just talking about young talent like Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum. Last night that meant giving time to embryonic players like Semi Ojeleye and Abdel Nader. It also meant putting more on the new star, Kyrie Irving.
But in last night’s 108-100 loss to Milwaukee in the home opener, every combination had a flaw in a decidedly flawed offensive performance from the Celts.
Irving struggled against the Bucks’ tight and long coverage with 17 points on 7-for-25 shooting. Though Jaylen Brown led the way with 18 points, the 20-yearold forward also fouled out with 1:48 left in a tight game.
He was attempting at the time to guard Giannis Antetokounmpo, who scored 37 points, when he discovered that he can exploit every matchup the C’s tried.
But the above combinations are going to take time to refine, especially now that Hayward’s absence points to a lot more reshuffling ahead.
“We can continue to ask that question after every game and I won’t get that question after we win,” Irving began. “Until it starts clicking and we understand that guys didn’t think they would have been in this position, as early in the season of having Gordon go down and having young guys on this team now having that opportunity to be out there and play in big time games every single night, and teams coming at us — that’s going to be an adjustment period and I understand that.
“I don’t want to make the excuse that we’re a young team, but we are,” he said. “We definitely have some experience here, and we have to utilize that and continue to exude confidence in the young guys and ourselves, and understand that the game comes in waves. There will be ups and downs and we have to withstand other teams’ runs as well as hit back and have that hit-first mentality in the first quarter, second quarter, third quarter and fourth quarter.
“Once we understand we have to put a complete game together, including myself at the head of the ball, and being better with it and putting guys in the right spots, we’ll be fine.”
But as evidenced by the prime-time minutes given to Ojeleye and Nader last night — both had significant contributions during a 17-4 third quarter run — the Celtics will indeed be prone to youthful mistakes.
Brown, for instance, picked up his fourth foul almost immediately in the third quarter, triggering a rare outward display of frustration in Stevens.
“I thought that obviously not having him out there, having him have to play somewhat tentative with the four and five fouls is not a good thing, especially when Giannis and (Khris) Middleton can put you in a bad spot,” said the Celtics coach. “And they did so over and over tonight. I thought tonight could have been worse; I thought they missed open shots. So we have a long way to go.
“It’s going to be that way. We’ve got a lot of young guys,” Stevens said of his search for the right rotation. “I’m hopeful that we can find the right combinations. We obviously didn’t anticipate going maybe this far into the bench this early, but I thought some of those guys did a pretty good job.
“The part that we’ve got to find is a combination that works all together, especially when we go to the bench right now. So, we’ll find it.”
In time, anyway. As evidenced by the emotion drawn out of Irving when asked about Hayward, this team is still grieving.
“You could throw as many emotions in there as you want, man. We know how much ‘G’ meant to this team, means to this team,” said Irving. “Without him on the floor and creating those opportunities that we were going over in practice and we saw in preseason, and even in the first game, that’s a big void to fill.
“So when you think of it and that aspect, of course you want to be frustrated and disappointed,” he said. “But I’m pretty sure that’s not what ‘G’ wants. So for us, just gotta continue to build confidence in the young guys and be ready to step up to the plate because there’s going to be a lot, even higher expectations on our guys in this locker room now to try to attempt to fill that whole that ‘G’ left for us.
“But as one of the leaders on the team, it’s my job to pick us up as well as with Brad. And continue with all the guys. And we’ve just gotta look each other in the eyes and know what to expect every single night.”