Jevon Carter’s defense will need to be strong off the bench once again
This isn’t even close to being on the same level as Antetokounmpo’s scoring, but Jevon Carter’s impact was huge in Game 1 off the bench and they’ll need his in-your-face defense again tonight.
There were a few impressive stats to come out of Carter’s Game 1 performance. A fun one is that the Celtics were 0-of-5 with Carter as the closest defender. Another is that he was a game-high plus-25 in a 12-point win and played just under 22 minutes.
Perhaps my favorite is that Carter was the only Buck to not get called for a foul. In fairness, Brook Lopez was only called for one and he was contesting everything so it would be a lot easier for him to pick up fouls so only having one is impressive, but Carter’s zero fouls are also good.
Carter’s a tenacious and physical defender, especially when he picks a guy up full court, so he tends to pick up a couple of ticky-tack fouls through the course of a game. It’s not as if he was guarding Payton Pritchard or hiding off-ball in his nearly 22 minutes, either.
He defended Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart more than anyone on the Celtics at a combined nearly four matchup minutes. Smart can bait you into a foul pretty easily but not Carter, apparently!
He, Holiday, and Wesley Matthews will be asked to a lot all series in defending Brown, Smart, and Jayson Tatum. Carter more than passed the first test in Game 1. If he can give them good minutes (like if Holiday is in early foul trouble again) then it makes the Bucks that much deeper.