Boston Celtics
“The standard he sets for himself is very high,” Joe Mazzulla said of George. “It’s very, very high.”
Paul George during the Celtics’ win over the Bucks. AP Photo/Kayla Wolf
Paul George and the Celtics started slow against the Bucks, but they quickly re-established control and strolled to a 117-97 victory.
Here are the takeaways.
Paul George had another huge night
George might be aging, but even at 36, his game still simply looks really good when he gets going.
Witness him starting toward a screen by Neemias Queta on a hand-off, then rejecting it abruptly to force Bucks rookie Brayden Burries onto his hip. With the rookie pinned to his side, George took two big dribbles and dropped in a comfortable floater.
Or witness him setting up a 1-on-1 against Jaime Jaquez Jr., then waiting until the Bucks forward took a step forward to cross over and start a drive, then pulling up in one smooth motion to elevate over Jaquez for a jumper.
George finished Sunday’s game with 27 points on 11-for-18 shooting in just 28 minutes. At +12.8 so far this year, he is in the 89th percentile in terms of point differential league-wide, and he is more than capable of carrying the load when Tatum is on the bench.
One interesting trend to follow: According to Synergy Sports, the Celtics are running George through nearly twice as many hand-offs as the Sixers did last season, and he has already scored more points (21) on those sets than he did all of last year (18). George has been far more efficient in those sets than he has been as the ball-handler in pick-and-rolls, scoring 1.3 points per possession as opposed to 0.7.
The Sixers, of course, had little reason to use George as a ball-handling initiator given that they employ Tyrese Maxey, but the Celtics have made good use of George’s creativity and his ability to read the game as he rockets around picks from Neemias Queta and Mitchell Robinson.
“The standard he sets for himself is very high,” Joe Mazzulla told reporters afterward. “It’s very, very high.
“It’s interesting, when you get guys that age, just his open-mindedness to want to learn. I think the way he processes film, the way he journals, the way he sees the game, the conversations he has with the coaches during the game, I think just his willingness to push himself, it’s fun to watch.”
Jayson Tatum got quite a bit of rest
After Jayson Tatum scored 34 points against the Hornets in just 29 minutes, he once again got to spend a significant amount of Sunday night’s game on the bench — he played 29 minutes, tallying 21 points and six assists, and he sat the entire fourth quarter as the Celtics pulled away.
Tatum had a strange shooting night — he was 5-for-11 from deep and 4-for-4 at the free-throw line, which usually would have added up to a 30-plus point outing.
However, Tatum was just 1-for-8 inside the arc, and he never got into his most efficient offense — driving and using his combination of strength and ball-handling to collapse the defense around the hoop. He missed five mid-range jumpers, which was somewhat reminiscent of some of previous seasons when he was far less efficient. Even his 3-pointers — as silly as it sounds to point out — weren’t all particularly clean: He caught a lot of rim on three of the five.
Still, Tatum hasn’t been hitting a lot of 3-pointers so far this year and is still playing at a borderline MVP level. Given that the Celtics won by 20 points, and given that George was having a scorcher of a game, and given that Tatum appeared happy to get off the ball and keep George cooking, he gets a pass here for a game in which he never really looked comfortable, especially since any night when Tatum can limit his minutes during this grind of a month will be a positive.
Mike Conley got the start (it wasn’t great)
Mazzulla continued to play starting lineup roulette, but he may have overthought his latest innovation — Mike Conley started, and the Celtics immediately went down 20-6. Conley played just 10 minutes (five minutes to start both halves), and he was -11 in a game the Celtics won by 20.
Mazzulla has started one of Jordan Walsh, Hugo González and Baylor Scheierman at various points throughout the year, but Conley was a surprise. On Friday, Conley helped the Celtics maintain a big point differential late in their NBA Cup showdown against the Hornets, and he has had little flashes at various points which were a reminder that Conley was once an All-Star and was many times a Player Who Just Missed being an All-Star.
At 39, however, he probably should not be a regular starter any more.
The shots gap was massive
Mazzulla likes to play math games, and the Celtics won Sunday’s game in part due to a massive advantage in field-goals attempted: Boston was 45-for-95 from the field, while the Bucks were 35-for-79.
The disparity in makes was friendly for the Celtics, of course, but it was generated by the disparity in attempts, which in turn is generated by the disparity in turnovers (14-10 in favor of the Celtics) and offensive rebounds (20-9 in favor of the Celtics).
Bill Simmons famously invented the term “stocks” for “rebounds + blocks.” Somebody needs to come up with something better than “TurnO-Rebs” for “opponent turnovers + offensive rebounds,” because that’s the best we can come up with, and it’s terrible.
Look at Sam Hauser go
Hauser was 3-for-5 from the field, which usually means he scored precisely nine points, but he finished with seven on Sunday.
The most notable bucket was this buzzer-beater at the end of the third quarter — Hauser pump-faked, drove by an opponent, and managed to switch hands while finishing a lefty jumper as the clock ran out.
Hauser went back to the bench holding his left hand in the air as his teammates greeted him enthusiastically.
Mitchell Robinson played his best minutes so far
Robinson has been maligned at times, but he played some of his best minutes of the year so far in the first half as the Celtics reeled the Bucks back in and then took the lead.
The Celtics used Robinson in a role closer to the one in which he was so comfortable with the Knicks — they ran him through pick-and-rolls, and he either caught a lob, or he went to the dunker’s spot if nobody threw the ball toward the rim, where he wreaked havoc on Milwaukee’s bigs. Robinson grabbed four offensive rebounds and blocked a shot, and he even picked off four steals.
The best of the buckets was a give-and-go in the second half in which Robinson himself appeared to spot the play before it happened — replays showed him raising his eyebrows significantly at Tatum before throwing an entry pass to the Celtics’ star in the post. After delivering the pass, Robinson streaked down the lane behind Myles Turner, who left him to double Tatum, and Tatum delivered a very simple alley-oop, which Robinson slammed home.
Robinson finished with 12 points on 6-for-6 shooting. Importantly, he was +19 in his 18 minutes, which is a major improvement over his previous numbers — even after he was +6 against the Hornets on Friday, the Celtics are -8.9 points per 100 possessions with Robinson on the floor.
That number, however, appears to be trending up. The Celtics’ big rotation may be coming together just in time to face Joel Embiid in easily the most anticipated game of the year to date.
What’s next
That game, of course, is the Celtics’ first game against Jaylen Brown and the Sixers on Tuesday at 8 p.m. on NBC and Peacock.
“I’m not really able to tell the future,” Tatum said when he was asked about Brown yet again. “I just know that it’s the Celtics vs. the Sixers. Go out there and do my job. Try to get another win on Tuesday.”
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