Bucks’ rugged defense requires rapid response
BOSTON —That bitter taste the Boston Celtics have in their mouths after losing Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals is the Milwaukee Bucks force-feeding them a taste of their own medicine on the parquet.
Defending NBA champion Milwaukee manacled Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown in a 101-89 win in the same fashion the Celtics locked up Brooklyn stars Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving in their first-round sweep of the Nets. The Bucks turned the tables on the NBA’S best defense, sticking to Tatum and Brown like the basketball version of a Secret Service detail, except instead of protecting them, the Bucks were protecting their basket.
They hounded the Jays, surrounded them, and confounded them. Boston’s offense, which shot just 33.3 percent, was dead on arrival.
The Celtics now have to recalibrate their aim for stepping up in class considerably. Even without Celtic Kryptonite Khris Middleton, the Bucks possess what Doc Rivers used to call championship DNA. They’re the finished version of what the Celtics morphed into for the last threeplus months, a team with culture, character, commitment
on the defensive end, and high-level coaching.
Those were all areas where the Celtics had a considerable advantage over the Net Zeroes, who were disinterested, disorganized, and discombobulated on defense. Hipster mannequin coach Steve Nash always looked like he was looking for an Uber Eats order to arrive at his bench, not coaching do-or-die basketball. That’s all over now. Milwaukee coach Mike Budenholzer is one of the best in the biz, and he’s going to test the Celtics and coach Ime Udoka. He and his sui generis superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo are going to probe the Celtics’ weaknesses,
push their buttons, and see if they break.
That was obvious in the opening game of his hoops heavyweight showdown. Boston’s young guns shot blanks all day, combining to go 1 for their first 10 and 10 for 31 overall.
It wasn’t simply that they missed shots. It was the shots they took were dictated by the Bucks defensive firewalls. Milwaukee pressured the Celtics, picking up full court, to take them out of their sets — and their comfort zone.
The Celtics have embraced balanced team basketball, but their stars being put into cold storage is not a recipe for
success.
“We’ve seen Jaylen and Jason being guarded certain ways all year, the attention that they draw,” Udoka said Monday. “That part wasn’t a surprise.
“We understand they are different than Brooklyn, so coming out of that series we understand how they defend is different, the size. But we’ve seen that all year. More so, how we reacted to it, getting sped up and taken out of some of our sets. We didn’t play our best offense by far.”
Milwaukee’s defensive philosophy is to pack the paint and create layers of long arms and a sea of hands barricading the basket. Just 22.5 percent of the Celtics’ points (20) came in the paint.
And Milwaukee gave new meaning to the term restricted area.
Tatum shot just 2 of 9 inside the paint, 61 percent below the league average. The two makes came in transition. One was a fast-break layup off a feed from Marcus Smart — Tatum’s first basket of the game after starting 0 for 5. The other was a put-back dunk off a Smart miss with 2:47 left in the fourth.
Otherwise, he got nothing else going to the hoop while shooting 6 for 18 for 21 points. Several times he would beat one or two layers of the Bucks defense only to be confronted mid-air, forcing him to give up the ball or try to convert a layup with a degree of difficulty and contortion befitting an Olympic diver.
Brown struggled to get good looks and, worse, simply hold on to the ball, accounting for seven of Boston’s 18 turnovers.
Brown (12 points on 13 shots) got only one shot within 10 feet of the basket — a roaring, soaring put-back slam of a Grant Williams missed 3-pointer.
“I think him and Jayson struggling was more a product of what they did than anything, fatigue or rust or on (Brown’s) part, the hamstring (injury),” said Udoka.
The way the Bucks play defense is counterintuitive to today’s fireaway, analytics-fueled NBA, which preaches 3s. Only the Heat allowed more 3-point attempts this season than the Bucks.
The Celtics certainly RSVP’D to the invitation to take those 3s, launching 50. But they shot 36 percent. Point guards Smart and Payton Pritchard played right into Budenholzer’s hands. They shot a combined 3 of 14 from beyond the arc. Brown was 3 of 9.
This is the first real adversity the Celtics have faced in the playoffs. The Nets series was decided by a total of 18 points, but the Celtics dictated terms with Durant. That’s not the case against the Bucks.
As much as Game 2 Tuesday will require a better biomechanical performance, it also will test the Celtics’ mental toughness. Can they push past the frustration with Milwaukee’s physicality and the officiating and squandering home-court advantage to counter? Or will they break down and start bickering with the officials and each other, which is their modus operandi when things don’t go their way in heated competition.
The Celtics received their “Welcome to the playoffs!” moment.
Basketball got real instead of real easy.