1. Historic First Half Offense
After dropping a franchise record 53 points on the Miami Heat in the game before, the Celtics came into this matchup against the Milwaukee Bucks and dropped 43 more. Boston scoring 96 points in back-to-back first quarters is a new NBA record, beating the previous mark set by the Denver Nuggets of 92 points in 2008. Boston once again shot ridiculously well, going 15-25 (60%) from the field and 8-12 (67%) from three with 0 turnovers.
Boston also set a franchise record for the most points in consecutive
first halves with a total of 155 points after scoring 80 points against Miami and 75 points against Milwaukee, breaking the previous record of 152 points. In the first half against the Bucks, the Celtics shot 28-53 (53%) from the field and 12-23 (52%) from three with only 2 turnovers.
2. Tatum Ethical Hoops
After recording his first triple-double of the season against the Heat, Jayson Tatum was about as close as you could get when it came to getting two in a row, finishing with 23 points, 11 rebounds, 9 assists and 3 steals on 8-16 shooting from the field and 4-8 shooting from three. One of the craziest stats on Tatum in this game is that he finished as a +30 in 31 minutes, just ethical hoops.
When it came to his shot, Tatum looked like he was shooting in an open gym for most of his attempts. The Bucks did not have a guy who could guard him and his work navigating screens from Neemias Queta allowed him to get a ton of wide open shots.
Tatum’s rebounding in this game was big on the defensive glass but it was his assists that were the most impressive thing to watch. Tatum was seeing the floor like Neo in the Matrix. He knew what play was coming and made the pass to a teammate before even they knew what they were about to do. Just pinpoint accuracy that not every player in the NBA can master.
I was also really impresses with Tatum’s defense in this game. The 3 steals that he ended with were in result of Tatum using his heightened sense of awareness for the situation to pick off passes and create offensive opportunities. Maybe he really is Neo.
3. Queta for Most Improved Player
For the 16th time this season and the second game in a row, Neemias Queta finished with a double-double of 19 points, 10 rebounds, and 4 blocks on 8-11 shooting. This game is a perfect example of why Queta needs to win Most Improved Player.
Queta has improved so much when it comes to setting the best screens in the NBA and making quick decisions once he has the ball in his hands. This play where he caught it at the free throw line and passed it to Derrick White show’s his improvements in his decision making.
When it comes to scoring, Queta’s connection with Jayson Tatum is really starting to blossom into an unstoppable force. Out of his 8 made shots, 4 of them were assisted by Tatum. Queta’s job was just to finish the play and he did a great job of putting himself in the right position to receive the passes.
On the defensive end, we have seen Queta transform into an incredible shot blocker. He had 4 blocks in this game that he was able to time up perfectly. Going from the fourth string center last season to the starter this year has been an incredible testament to his development and that should put him as the favorite for Most Improved Player.
4. Brown Makes Scoring Look Easy
It must be so awesome to be able to have an offensive bag like Jaylen Brown. He finished with 26 points, 4 assists, 3 rebounds, and 2 steals on 7-17 shooting and 2-4 from three but when you watched him play in this game it looks like its just a regular game of pickup.
We saw Brown take and make a ton of pull-up jump shots against Milwaukee mostly due to the fact that they just couldn’t guard him. Similar to Tatum, Brown was able to get wherever he wanted to on the court with relatively no pushback from the defense and just rise up over people. Brown finished his night on fire, scoring 13 points in the third quarter before sitting for the rest of the game.
That’s why I think it has to be so cool to have Jaylen Brown’s offensive ability because he knows how to make the game of basketball look so easy.
5. Hauser-Matic
Coming off a first quarter where Sam Hauser shot 6-6 from the field and 5-5 from three in the first quarter against the Heat, he followed it up with a 3-3 shooting first quarter against the Bucks with all of his shots coming from beyond the arc. Hauser finished this game with 13 points on 5-6 shooting from the field and 3-4 shooting from three.
Hauser’s ability to get hot early is huge for the Celtics offense. When he is hitting his threes, Boston can build up a lead quick and in a hurry. This reminds me of how the 2024 Celtics would use Jrue Holiday on offense when he shot 43% from three that year. Boston was able to close out games by the end of the third quarter up by 50 points all because Holiday was hitting wide open corner threes.
Hauser has that same ability to just make wide open shots to demoralize a defense and that makes Boston’s offense so much scarier to any team that runs into them.
6. Pritchard Paint Precision
Payton Pritchard continued his streak of good performances in this game, finishing with 16 points and 6 assists on 7-12 shooting from the field and 2-6 shooting from three. The thing that impresses me most with Pritchard’s offense is how is able to navigate himself when he is in the paint at his size.
Pritchard loves when a big gets switched on to him so he can completely embarrass them by taking them off the dribble and shooting a fadeaway jumper that doesn’t even touch rim. The defends the jump shot? Pritchard is just going to use an array of up-and-under moves to continue to embarrass them. If he’s not doing that, Pritchard might just use his speed to blow by you and finish through contact for a layup.
No matter what happens, in the end the big man on the other team ends up feel sad and embarrassed while Payton Pritchard just continues his asention into the Gen Z version of Steve Nash.
7. White Three-Point Slump Busted?
Ever since Jayson Tatum has come back on March 6th, Derrick White has been in a shooting slump from three, shooting 26% from three on 78 attempts in his last 12 games. Although he was able to buck that trend in this game against Milwaukee, finishing with 17 points 5-9 shooting from three.
White is currently having the second worst three-point shooting season of his career at 32% but this game feels encouraging. He looked a lot more comfortable taking them in this game verses last game against Miami where he only attempted 1 three. Hopefully White can get hot for the playoffs, but his shooting as a whole is the least bit concerning considering all of the other ways he can impact the game on offense and defense.
8. Buck Hunting vs Zone
In the Miami game, it was pretty obvious the Celtics plan was to attack Tyler Herro any chance they got and tonight Boston did the same thing with Milwaukee’s AJ Green. In the second quarter we saw Brown and Tatum attack Green on back-to-back plays with similar results.
Tatum started it out by getting the ball at the three point line. With Green only being listed at 6’4”, this was a free basket Jayson, backing down the Bucks sharpshooter and splashing a step back jumper in his face.
On the next offensive possession the Celtics had, Brown got the ball at the three point line and just bullied his way to the free throw area where he hit Green with a fadeaway jumper that looked like shooting practice.
These were a couple examples of the way the Celtics were able to exploit mismatches on the undermanned Bucks all night long. After years of Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum having to play against the Miami Heat’s zone defense in the conference finals, it feels funny that teams even try to run it when the Jays are on the floor and they don’t have the personnel to hold up.
9. Board Man Gets Paid
Boston dominated Milwaukee in pretty much every aspect of this game but one area that stands out was their ability to dominate the glass, out-rebounding the Bucks 48-30 on the night. Craziest part about the Celtics rebounding number is the fact that Tatum and Queta combined for 21 of the 48 rebounds for Boston.
When it came to the points in the paint battle, the Celtics blew them out 56-22. With Myles Turner being the only person that has even the slightest ability to defend the paint against Boston, it was pretty much an all you can buffet down there. Boston shot 22-26 (85%) directly underneath the basket in this one, finished off by a Jordan Walsh alley-oop dunk.
10. The Celtics Defense Makes No Sense
It’s hard to find negatives when the Celtics have blown out their opponents the last two games by an average of 25 points while scoring an average of 140 points, but there is one thing that just doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense and that is Boston’s three point defense.
This game made it back-to-back games where the Celtics allowed 20+ threes to their opponent and still won. This has only happened one other time in NBA history from the Milwaukee Bucks in 2021. Although the Celtics are winning is there any cause for concern with the three point defense?
I’m going to say no when it comes to being concerned given the fact that Boston averages 14.1 threes given up a game so this could just be an outlier. The Celtics were blowing out their opponents by so much, in some meaningless regular season games and they were just a little lackadaisical on defense. Even in their last loss to the Atlanta Hawks on March 30th, Boston only allowed 15 made threes.
My final verdict is that there is nothing to really be concerned about as of now but it really is just a strange statistical anomaly. Leave it to the Celtics to break both brains and stat sheets.
