Celtics look to reset against Bucks as a hard November road run begins

The Celtics host the Milwaukee Bucks tonight at 7:30 p.m. ET at TD Garden, and the first job is to put a 109-93 loss at Houston behind them. Boston is 5-2. They played Monday on the second night of a back-to-back, a day after a 108-97 win at Orlando, and ran into a Rockets team that came in 6-1.

A loss like that explains itself, but it does not change what lies ahead. Tonight opens a run of 14 games in 27 days, 10 of them on the road, including four more back-to-backs. Boston is at Charlotte on Friday and at Milwaukee on Sunday, and the stretch gives little time to dwell on one night.

Tatum is carrying the early load

Jayson Tatum has been the steadiest thing about the start. He is averaging 27.0 points, 7.9 assists and 6.0 rebounds, a scoring average that places him among the league's top 10. He has scored 189 points in seven games and gone for 36 against New York, 40 against Brooklyn and 32 at Orlando, three games of 30 or more.

He has done it without a hot three-point stroke, 11 of 48, by living at the free-throw line, where he has made 60 of 69. Even in Monday's loss he finished with 19 points and nine assists. Boston's season so far has leaned on him, and he has held up.

The swing factor

The other side of the ledger is the shot-making from the players around him, and the contrast between Boston's good nights and bad ones is easy to see. Payton Pritchard scored 28 and 30 in the two wins over Chicago. In Houston he went 0 for 7, Derrick White went 3 for 12 and Jordan Walsh went 2 for 4, a combined 5 of 23 from the field for three players who are supposed to supply the spacing and the secondary scoring.

When those three shoot well, the Celtics tend to look comfortable. When they do not, the offense has to be rebuilt every possession, and that is a hard way to win on the road.

It is not a rule, though. Against Orlando on Sunday, Pritchard went 3 for 11, White 4 for 8 and Walsh 0 for 3, a combined 7 of 22, and Boston still won by 11 because Tatum scored 32. The point is not that the Celtics lose when the role players are cold. It is that they win with more room to spare, and with less strain on Tatum, when the role players are good.

Tonight

Milwaukee is 1-6 and comes in off a 112-100 loss at Minnesota. Tyler Herro leads the Bucks at 21.9 points a game.

Boston will be without Tatum, who has played all seven games and has been ruled out for rest. Pritchard is questionable with a right shoulder contusion, and Devin Carter is out with mononucleosis. Without Tatum, the shot-making from White, Walsh and Pritchard, if he plays, matters even more than usual.

Sources: box score data, team injury reports as reported by the Celtics' official site, BostonSportsJournal.com, NBC Sports, Yahoo Sports and CelticsBlog, and the NBA schedule.