What a fucking emotional roller coater this one was.
For starters, the angry way I felt towards the Celtics after game 1... magnify it 10-fold and apply it to the refs. It has never been so clear to me as it was today that there is a whole separate set of rules that apply to Giannis. He was allowed to goaltend, run over whomever he wanted and usually get the call, play dangerously with impunity.
In the second quarter, Tatum was going in for a fast break dunk, and Giannis, allegedly going for a chase down block, came at Tatum directly from behind and fucking drilled him into the stanchion. Tatum was down for a while and seemed to have injured his left hand/arm. Common foul. The dunk was good but he missed the free throw. Any other player in the league did that foul, it's at least a flagrant 1. He ran over several Celtics in the first half, only once called. In the second half, Grant, guarding Giannis off ball, has established defensive position and isn't moving. Giannis trucks him. Foul on Grant. Grant ended up playing the 4th quarter with 4 and 5 fouls, Ime took him off of Giannis, and Giannis schooled (not trucked) Jaylen Brown a couple of times. Another play in the second half, Giannis trying to post up Grant from the left block. Giannis bumps Grant once and tries to use his arm to clear Grant out of his way, Grant isn't moved out of the way, Giannis lowers the shoulder and drills Grant in the chest, and scores, no call. Another play: Giannis drives at Al and Rob, tries to split them. Al fouls Giannis (legitimate), who clears Rob out by gathering the ball and shoving it into Rob's face. I've never seen the ball used as a blunt instrument to deliver a blow to the head before.
Other bullshit was Rob Williams getting elbowed in the head and having to leave the game (no call), Mathews dove and cut blocked White's legs out from under him in pursuit of a loose ball (common foul), some Grasyon Allen bullshit (one no call, one foul called on Pritchard that looked like Allen pulling Pritchard down on him). Lopez, battling a man at least 9 inches shorter than he under the basket (Smart), finally pulls Smart down on top of him and the refs call a fucking double foul. Grant's foul trouble and Rob's getting elbowed in the head forced Theis into the game for 2 useless minutes in the third, which didn't help the Celtics.
That's not a complete list, but on top of that were ticky tack calls against the C's. Borderline charge called (and upheld) on Grant while Giannis is just trucking guys and going to the line.
I lost respect for Giannis in this game - he might have injured Tatum on a reckless play, and if the refs keep letting him play recklessly, he will injure players. I don't know that he is dirty per se, but I am starting to wonder. It's disgusting to me that the Celtics might lose a playoff series because the refs are basically letting Giannis play like a TE/LB.
The first half was a rock fight. The Celtics as a team were not great at sticking with their offensive system when the Bucks defended them with physicality. They did a lot of settling for the first shot and missing, or driving and getting swallowed up inside. On the occassions when they did move the ball they tended to get better results. They were down by 3 after one, up by 4 after 2, taking advantage of Giannis missing the end of the half after getting called for his third personal on a reach in. He's trucking guys left and right, clearing guys out with his arm or with a a shoulder drive into the chest, and they call in on a ticky tack reach in.
Third quarter was a different story. Celtics offense was almost not there, and I think the bullshit way the game was being called got to them. Tatum, who had maybe he worst playoff game ever, lost his focus and the team as a whole lost its composure. They were outscored 34-17 in the quarter and entered the 4th down 13, 80-67.
And, damn it if they didn't come to play in that quarter, especially Al Horford and Jaylen Brown. With 3:44 to go and down by 2, the Celtics played a great defensive sequence that ended with a Tatum steal and Smart getting fouled. He missed the first free throw, hit the second to bring them within one, 97-96. After neither team scores (Connaughton misses a three and then Tatum misses a 13 footer), Giannis scores to put the Bucks up 3. Holliday fouls Brown, who hits the pair to cut the Bucks lead to one, 99-98. Celtics get a stop, and Al Horford, who has played a great game and quarter, makes a rare bad decision by channeling Marcus Smart and heaving up a 29 foot deep three, which misses. Plenty of time on the clock when he lot it go. The Celtics get a stop, Brown gets fouled, hits both, and the Celtics are up 1, 100-99. The Celtics get another stop, fueled by great defense and a Brown block of a Giannis layup attempt. Milwaukee plays good defense and Brown is forced to take a deep three with the clock running down - he missed but Grant comes flying in out of nowhere and grabs the rebound, kicks it to Smart, who throws up another deep three and misses. The Horford and Smart deep three misses in the final 2:04 are going to stick with me along with all of the bullshit officiating. Bucks rebound the Smart miss and call time. Giannis scores easily to put them back up one with 44 seconds left. Brown misses with 35 seconds left and Milwaukee gets the rebound, Holliday hits a short jumper with 11.2 seconds left to put the Celtics up 3. At the other end, Smart tries to do the "draw contact with the defender and throw up a heave," the call no one gets anymore, and the refs call a floor foul, sending Marcus to the line for 2 shots (Bucks are over the limit) with 4.6 left. Marcus hits the first, then throws up the deliberate miss... and rebounds it! Smart misses a 5-footer, Rob misses a tip-in, Al misses a tip-in, time expires before his second tip in goes in - the ball was touching his hand when the buzzer sounded. No basket, Bucks win by 2. That close. As close as game 1 vs Brooklyn.
The positives from this game in terms of player performances:
- Al was a monster. I think it was him that led the comeback in the 4th. He scored 22 points on 9-17 shooting, 4-7 from three. 16 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 blocks, zero turnovers. With the Celtics down 6, and 5:21 left, Al scored 7 points in a 1:11 stretch where the Bucks only hit a three to bring the Celtics to within 2 and set up the end game. Altogether he scored 12 of the Celtics 34 4th quarter points and would have had 14 of their 36 had he gotten the tip at the end. His teammates need to learn from the example he set in being able to maintain composure through the bullshit officiating. I hope the team realizes that they let him down with their third quarter lapse.
- Jaylen was also there to play in the fourth. He led the team with 27 points on 8-16 from the field and 10-11 from the line, along with 12 rebounds, 4 assists, and a block. He did have 4 turnovers, but overall it was a great game from Jaylen. He had 15 in the 4th, so between Brown and Horford, that was 27 of 34 points. The 4 free throws down the tretch were key.
- This was the first game where Rob really started to look like the Rob we know and love. In 23 minutes, he scored 10 points on 5-9 shooting and added 5 rebounds, which doesn't sound like much, but this was one of his "fill out the whole stat line" games, with 4 assists, 2 steals, and 3 blocks. He also endured having the ball thrust into his face as if it were a weapon by Giannis and then took a more routine elbow to the head at the other end. That limited his minutes (gave us 2 useless Theis minutes).
- Derrick White layed a strong 21 minutes and, if I am going to second guess Ime about anything he did, it was not finding more minutes for Derrick White. For the econd straight game, White led the Celtics in +/-, which I think was indicative of 3 things: the ball movement was always better with White in the game than with him out of it, he shot better (3-6 from the field but 2-3 from 3), and he aggressively looked to penetrate and got himself to the line (where he shot 6 for 8). He was the Celtics' third leading scorer after Brown and Horford, with 14 points. I think Ime needed to find minutes for him, although I 100% understand why he did not, which I will get to.
The mediocre:
- Grant Williams numbers' came back to earth in a big way. He shot 2-9 from the field and 1-6 from three, scoring a total of 9 points, adding 6 rebounds, 2 assists, 3 blocks. Giannis also went off for 42, though he needed to hoist up 30 shots to get there. I still think this was a pretty good game from Grant. He was a +8, and he battled despite playing at a disadvantage. I think Ime felt that he needed Grant's defense out there, which meant that he, and not White, got to play down the stretch. But when Grant picke up foul #5 and Ime took him off of Giannis, I think a case could have been made for getting White in there. But, then again, the Celtics offense was good in the 4th, until late.
The varying degress of bad:
- Marcus Smart. 9 points on 1-8 shooting from the field (6-8 from the line). 2 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal, 3 turnovers. The first bad Mar cus game we have seen in awhile. I wonder how much was the injury? Yet, at the end, he drew the foul that led to the intentional miss that he rebounded and the Celtic came a split second away from tying it at the buzzer.
- Jayson Tatum. Worst playoff game of his life, bad enough to make me wonder if he was injured when Giannis trucked him. Ten points on 4 of 19 from the field. That's right, four of fucking 19. Missed all six of his threes. Barely even got to the line, shooting only 2-3 from there. But it gets worse. One rebound. 41 minutes played and one stinking rebound. Three assists and one steal. The one thing he did do right was block 4 shots. Also 3 turnovers, but like Smart, not much production alongside his turnovers. It's hard to recall a case of a star player delivering such a no show. If he is healthy, he has something he needs to figure out and quick.
- Payton Pritchard. Don't look now, but he is having a worse shooting series that Derrick White. He was 0-3 today, 0-2 from three. He did have 2 assists in 11 minutes. (White, oddly, had no assists, even though the offsense clearly flows better with him in the game).
The 7 4th quarter points not scored by Al and Jaylen were a White 3, a Tatum 2, and two Smart free throws.
All in all, there was a real mix of good and bad coming out of this game.
The garbage officiating was sickening, I will never be convinced that they were not intentionally biased, either in favor of the Bucks or just in favor of Giannis. There were enough bullshit calls and non-calls to make the difference in the outcome of this game.
Giannis is going to end someone's career if he is allowed to play the way he did today. The star calls and non-calls is one thing, but the reckless disregard that let him to drill Tatum in the air from behind just disgusts me, as did the ball ---> face maneuver he used against Rob. He shouldn't be allowed to run guys all over the court just because he is 7 feet and athletic.
The Celtics need to be way, way better at getting into and running their offense. When they did, it worked for them, but they frequently did not.
The Celtics losing their composure and focus in the third is another reason they lost. The game was tied 54 apiece with 8:36 to go, and the Bucks went on a 12-2 run in under 2.5 minutes. The Celtic cut it to 5, but then let the Bucks open it to 13, where it was at quarter's end. They were in their heads at this point, esepcially Tatum, who was losing track of his defensive responsibilities.
For all of those negative things, they fought back from a 13 point 4th quarter deficit to come within tenths of a second of sending it to OT, which is a realy credit to the team.
Looking forward, there are good and bad ways to see this:
Good: They nearly overcame a stinker from Tatum, a key third quarter lapse, and everything the Bucks and the officials threw at them and took what could have become a blowout to OT. Milwaukee's got nothing else to throw at them, and in a game where Tatum is just bad instead of terrible, it wouldn't be enough. And the refs can't just let Giannis play football out there again. Can they?
Bad: Maybe Smart's injury was a factor in his poor play. Maybe Tatum was hurt on the Giannis foul. Maybe the league thinks letting Giannis kill a Celtic or 2 is good for ratings.
I don't know what comes next. The Celtics did not need this win, but they need game 4.
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