Tatum pushes Milwaukee slide to 3 games
BOSTON – The Milwaukee Bucks continued to struggle on their longest road trip of the season, losing 139-118 to the Boston Celtics on Sunday at TD Garden. The Bucks (22-11) lost their third straight while the Celtics (24-10) won for just the third time since Dec. 10.
Here are some takeaways from the game:
Jayson Tatum was too much for Bucks
Christmas Day was the first time the Bucks and Celtics played since Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals in May, a loss that stung the Bucks coaching staff and players all offseason. Head coach Mike Budenholzer recognized his team needed to change how it approached three-point defense.
And like in that playoff series, Bucks were again missing Khris Middleton – so it was a good way to evaluate just how far they had come since losing consecutive close-out games in May.
The Celtics came into the game taking (42.0), and making (15.8), the second-most three-pointers in the league so they were going to put them up on the Bucks. The difference was Milwaukee wasn’t going to let one player take them all. Boston pushed the pace and took threes in transition or used screens to create space.
It worked in the first quarter as the Celtics went 8-for-13 from behind the three-point line and led by as many as 11 points. But they were 0-for-5 in the second quarter. Boston got back to putting up threes after the break, and the Celtics made just enough to gain some separation from the Bucks.
Defensively, the Bucks made Celtics stars Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown work – particularly in having to go up against Jrue Holiday and Giannis Antetokounmpo head-to-head – and the Bucks made sure to pay more attention to the other players. Tatum and Brown took 21 of the Celtics’ 44 first-half shots and combined for 34 points while the other eight Celtics were just 10-for-23 in the first half.
It is a recipe the Bucks have used this season against teams with a pair of dynamic players (i.e. Brooklyn) but unfortunately Tatum was just too good on this day. He was indiscriminate in his shot selection, be it pull-up threes, midrange fallaways or explosions to the basket.
As Antetokounmpo often does for the Bucks, Tatum essentially willed his team to a victory – in particular during a 20-point third quarter that saw him help extend a 62-61 halftime lead to 10086 at the end of the third.
“I think he caught fire,” Holiday said. “He’s Jayson Tatum. He’s going to make tough shots. Seemed like he got into a rhythm making contested twos and some threes. Sometimes going one-onone like that and somebody gets hot, you can’t do much about it.”
Tatum made 14 of his 22 shots, including 3-for-7 from behind the threepoint line. He also got to the free throw line and made all 10 of his attempts there for a game-high 41 points. He also handed out five assists and pulled down seven rebounds and had three steals in a complete effort.
Celtics slow down Bucks’ biggest two
An emphasis for the Celtics heading into the game was to not defend Antetokounmpo and Brook Lopez the same way throughout the game, feeling they had some success against Antetokounmpo in the playoffs with that mindset.
As for Lopez, who is making threes at a career-best clip, Boston interim head coach Joe Mazzulla said his team had to be dedicated to defending that shot and closing out on Lopez while being aware of his post game. Lopez has had a resurgent offensive campaign in general, but with Middleton out he’s been counted on even more offensively – to the tune of 22.3 points per game on the road trip.
Lopez scored 12 points while going 5for-5 from the floor in the first half – but with just 1 three-pointer. He scored his other baskets in the paint. Antetokounmpo, meanwhile, was trying to work the midrange. He was just 1-for-3 from the paint and tied for the team lead in three-point attempts with three (with no makes).
It was a plan that worked in the second half, too, as Antetokounmpo didn’t find as many angles to the to burst through and Lopez just never found himself in positions to get threes up. The Bucks’ star scored 27 points but he was just 9-for-22 from the field. He made 8 of his 12 free throws.
“Just gotta be aggressive, gotta get to my spots, be better,” Antetokounmpo said of his night. “I don’t think I was aggressive as I would want to be. That’s pretty much it.”
Lopez only scored four more points on three more shots to finish with 16.
Bucks again down big behind three-point line
Bucks head coach Mike Budenholzer smiled when asked how he tries to get Grayson Allen to shoot more threes. “I yell at him.” Budenholzer laughed and qualified that Allen has more to his game than just launching threes, but the Bucks’ best three-point shooter (41.1%) had only put up 14 in his previous six games heading into Sunday. Lopez (40% on 5.3 attempts per game) and Holiday (35.9% on 6.1) have been firing indiscriminately and the next best-shooting regular, Jevon Carter (38%) lifted 14 in the last three games. In 66 games last year, he had 18 with at least 8 three-point attempts. He’s had just two so far this season.
“That’s too few,” Allen admitted. He said it is a balance he’s trying to strike in driving the ball to create at the rim or for teammates vs. putting up his own shot, “but, the sentiment of getting more threes up, I agree with and I need to do that. I need to find ways to do that.”
The Bucks pride themselves on not forcing things on offense, but it would make sense that they’d want to see Allen’s output increase from behind the line. Once again, the Bucks couldn’t buy one from distance against the Celtics, making just 11 of their 33 attempts. Connaughton led the team in attempts with seven while Allen was just 0-for-3.
They played the Celtics tough, but in the end only one pair of numbers really mattered: 17 to 11.
It was the difference in made threes between the teams before the starter were pulled with just under four minutes to go, and that 18-point differential was just too much for the Bucks to overcome. While the Celtics went about making threes differently from the way they did in the playoffs, they still made more of them.
Who do the Bucks play next?
Finished with their spin in the Eastern time zone, the Bucks head to Chicago on Wednesday to conclude their longest road trip of the season. The Bulls won 118-113 Nov. 23 at Fiserv Forum for their signature win of the season, as they have struggled to overcome the loss of Lonzo Ball (knee) and some chemistry issues with recently maxedout all-star Zach LaVine.