BOSTON — For the first time this season, the Boston Celtics were without star Jayson Tatum. The team announced his absence Wednesday afternoon, meaning it would have to adjust its approach when hosting the Milwaukee Bucks at TD Garden.
Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla further outlined those adjustments before opening tip.
“The sub pattern is going to be different,” Mazzulla said pregame. “The starting lineup’s gonna be different. The end-of-quarter lineups are gonna be different because he plays the
whole quarter. So we’ll play a bunch of different lineups. What doesn’t change is the process of how we have to execute on both ends of the floor, but some of the tactical stuff will change.”
With Tatum resting, Mazzulla inserted Paul George, Derrick White, Sam Hauser, Neemias Queta and Hugo González into Boston’s starting lineup. In the first quarter, George played all 12 minutes, Queta, Mitchell Robinson and Luka Garza rotated through a double-big combination, and Baylor Scheierman played more than half the frame as the Celtics dug deep into their depth.
Boston shuffled through 10 different players in the first quarter alone.
Mazzulla stuck by his word.
For the rest of the team, the objective was simple.
“Get a win,” White said. “It’s kind of the thing we always talk about; people in, people not in. We play how we play and just gotta go out there and get a win. Obviously it changes a little bit because JT does a lot for us, but at the end of the day, we believe in our depth, we believe in every person in the locker room, and we just gotta go out there and get a win.”
Garza, the team’s leader in 3-point makes in Houston (four), picked up right where he left off. Coming off the bench, he knocked down each of his first three 3-pointers to enter halftime as Boston’s leading scorer with 11 points. He also grabbed five rebounds, including three on the offensive glass, continuing his early-season emergence as Mr. Reliable in the Celtics’ reserve unit.
In the second half, as George and White began to carry the offensive load, Scheierman worked in tandem with Queta to clean up the glass.
The two combined for 15 rebounds in the second half, with Scheierman coming through with the biggest board of the night. He secured an offensive rebound with fewer than three minutes remaining in the fourth quarter before finding a cutting White, who finished the right-handed layup through contact and converted the three-point play at the free-throw line.
That put the Celtics ahead 102-97 with 2:22 left, providing some breathing room after the Bucks erased a 22-point deficit to take their first lead with 6:50 left.
It also helped navigate Pritchard’s early departure in the fourth quarter. The Celtics guard suffered an eye injury in the third quarter and was unable to return.
To George, who led Boston with 25 points, it was a good experience to overcome those late-game dramatics without a full-strength crew to help ease the stress.
“Just collectively coming together,” George said. “Learning how to play together in that moment.”
In many ways, the Celtics treated the one-win Bucks as a must-win matchup. They approached the night with immediate urgency, and once they slipped, they got back up and responded.
George and the rest of the team shut down Milwaukee’s comeback bid quickly, as the Bucks never led by more than a single point. He knocked down a clutch step-back three over Jaime Jaquez Jr. to extend Boston’s advantage to 107-99 with 1:22 left. But despite hearing TD Garden’s “MVP” chants directed his way, George was quick to credit the victory as a result of a group effort more than anything else.
Everyone pitched in, and the Celtics managed without their superstar forward.
“It was a five-man thing out there where everybody was helping each other, pulling for one another,” George explained. “We had to rebound. We had to scratch, claw. It was a physical battle that I thought we collectively (overcame). We have to do that. We have to come together and play together, and it’s just value for us to get those wins. Obviously we want JT to get his rest in those situations, so we gotta come together and collectively be big in those moments.”
