For most of the evening, it looked like the game wouldn’t mean much. Giannis Antetokounmpo was back home in Milwaukee. The Celtics looked like they were cruising to another easy win.
Then the Bucks came alive and turned the ending into one of the few close games the Celtics have faced in a while, edging Milwaukee 122-119. They lost to the Cavaliers and Nuggets earlier this month in contests that went down to the wire, but they hadn’t had a single-digit win since they beat the Nets in Brooklyn on Feb. 13.
It’s been a while since they had to solve crunch time.
“We obviously know (up) 18 going into the fourth quarter, you can’t possibly think that it’s not going to be a close game,” Joe Mazzulla said. “But it was good to be in one of those games. We hadn’t been in one in a little while there, and just a good learning experience.”
While the win for Boston is nice, even Doc Rivers acknowledged before the game that the second-place Bucks aren’t closing that 11-game gap in the standings behind the Celtics entering Thursday night’s games.
This ending mattered because it gave both teams a chance to feel how things might go if they met in the playoffs.
So what did we learn?
Spacing out the bigs
The Bucks’ defense is dominated by its big men. Aside from Pat Beverly and Khris Middleton when healthy, they don’t really have any reliable perimeter defenders. The goal for the Celtics is to find ways to get those bigs out of the way so Boston can attack the guards.
But Milwaukee found success with various defensive approaches in crunch time as the Bucks made their comeback. With Bobby Portis at the five instead of Brook Lopez, they were much more aggressive on ball screens and would often have Portis hedge over the screen or even all-out blitz to get the ball out of Jayson Tatum’s hands.
While teams will sometimes mess around with risky hedges and blitzes in the fourth quarter, defenses often switch when things get tight in the closing minutes. Boston wanted to take those coverages out of the equation late in the game and found a creative way to make it work.
The play that helped save the win for the Celtics was Tatum’s isolation on Malik Beasley with a minute and a half left in the game. This was the usual Celtics forcing the weak defender into a switch onto Tatum, something they do regularly.
But as much as Beasley can be exposed, he’s still a better one-on-one defender against Tatum than Damian Lillard. So why wouldn’t the Celtics try to get Lillard in that matchup?
Because there’s an even more vulnerable place to put him: right under the rim.
Offenses traditionally have their bigs go in the dunker spot, since they are the best lob threats and rebounders. One of Mazzulla’s most effective wrinkles this season has been how he puts Derrick White or Jrue Holiday down in that spot. Meanwhile, Kristaps Porziņģis or Al Horford will space out to the corner.
This takes the Bucks’ center (a.k.a. the x-5) out of the play and makes Lillard the rim protector. That makes it so much easier for Tatum to finish a tough finger roll from a distance without worrying about anyone blocking the shot.
tough take 💪🏽 pic.twitter.com/0Pci4LubPy
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) March 21, 2024
“All our bigs, especially KP (Porziņģis) and Al (Horford), can really obviously shoot the ball. So when we space x-5, we put them in a tough position,” Tatum said. “Do you want to help? If you do, we’re gonna kick it out. And there’s certain times putting guards in the dunker — they’re not used to being down there — they’re not rim protectors, so it gives them an option.”
Because Lillard was the rim protector on this play, the x-5 Bobby Portis was the weak side help. He’s guarding Porziņģis in the corner, so Tatum has to read whether it’s a layup or kick out to Porziņģis for the open 3. When Tatum makes the drive, Porziņģis starts to lift out of the corner, drawing Portis out of the lane to give Tatum the…
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