BOSTON — The Boston Celtics’ Game 3 Eastern Conference semifinal loss to the Milwaukee Bucks had a clunky pace in the second half, to say the least.
In Boston’s 123-116 loss at TD Garden, the Bucks had 36 free throws, 22 of which were attempted by star forward Giannis Antetokounmpo.
While the Celtics had plenty of things they did poorly that led to the loss, it is tough to look past some of the officiating. The referees were pretty quick on the whistle, and that hardly seems like a coincidence mere days after Antetokounmpo suggested the Celtics’ fouls were nearing the level of being flagrant.
The Celtics were outscored 40-31 in the third quarter, which ultimately proved to be their downfall. After the game, the first question Celtics point guard Kyrie Irving was asked was if he thought the Celtics got caught up in some of the calls that were going against them in the third frame.
In a word, Irving’s answer was yes.
“I mean it’s inevitable,” Irving said. “Guy comes down almost six times in a row, gets free throws. You know, what are you really going to do? It’s slowing the game down. So the run that you would hope to make in a quarter like that doesn’t happen. I mean (Antetokounmpo) shot 22 on the game, I mean it’s getting ridiculous at this point. It’s just slowing the (expletive) game down.
“I mean hey, the refs have a difficult job, we have a difficult job,” Irving later acknowledged. “Obviously I could sit up here and complain, we know the disparity and what it is. But I’m not going to put all the emphasis on the refereeing, there were a lot of controllable things on our end that we can be better at. Obviously, the officiating is going to be part of it, hopefully you wish that things could go your way but they don’t. And we have to be able to respond in a better (way). We’ve just got to respond to that.”
It’s fair to wonder where the Celtics go from here. They trail the series 2-1 and they now have to rethink their defensive approach to a degree if the officials are going to have a hair-trigger. Boston ended up in the bonus early in the third quarter, and that’s something it simply can’t allow to happen again.
“Like I said there’s some things that we obviously can control,” Irving said, “but the officiating we’re going to leave them alone next game, we’re going to do a better job of walling up, do a better job staying straight up, making sure there aren’t any eye-catching calls. We’re just going to make sure we stay solid. I’m going to make sure I communicate with our guys that, ‘hey if this is the way we’re going to play, we’re not going to adjust to them, we’re going to make them adjust to us.'”
The Celtics now have two days to see if they can figure out what adjustments need to be made before Monday’s pivotal Game 4 tips off.
