PG 2: 1-1

[Turk Nowitzki]

I was most disappointed how we could not remain poised when Boston came out strong. A veteran team especially just can't get rattled like that on the road and taken completely out of their game so easily. Having said that a ton of credit goes to Boston. I thought they played a great game in every facet.

Just have to wipe the slates clean after that performance, we got out of there accomplishing what we needed to accomplish in taking back HCA. Time to do what they couldn't and take care of business at home.

[Swan Vox]

Still the champs. They f*cking forgot it?

[machu46]

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[machu46]

Last night sucked as I expected it would but it was a bit worse than even I thought it would be. They stopped our transition game and with it, they stopped our team. We’ve flat out sucked in the half court these first two games. Need to pick it up big time.


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[Baddy Chuck]

The one play that summed up the whole game for me was I think towards the end of the third:

Tatum shoots a horrible contested shot that I'm surprised didn't find it's way in with how the night was going for them. Instead he airballs it into Grayson's hands who pushes it ahead to Giannis who leaves before he secures the ball and he fumbles it. He recovers but then throws a nonchalant pass ahead to Jrue who is just kinda waiting around halfcourt for the pass with Tatum right in the wings who then steals the ball and goes in for an easy dunk.

It's like whatever, the game was already over by then so maybe we were just going through the motions waiting to go home but just kinda summed up how the Celtics seemed pretty dialed in and ready to go from start to finish where we were just all over place. Forcing plays, rushing the offense, standing around ball watching on both ends of the floor. Hopefully we can dial it in because this other team isn't going to back down at any point and they'll be there to exploit that.

Whatever though. Split the road games. One dominant game. One game we got dominated. Clean it up and get ready for game 3.

[JimmyTheKid]

Really frustrating performance. Game 2 vs. Chicago all over again. How do you come out that flat, sloppy, and disinterested? Burn the tape, rest up, and do better Saturday.

[Isocleas2]

Giannis is going to have to win his 1v1 early and often if they want to force Boston to change their defense up.

Also as annoying as SVG was last night he was right about running more pick n rolls where giannis is the screener, they're letting our guards get into the paint in order to stop Giannis. Let Holiday run it with Giannis all game, he'll eat them up inside or find 3 pt shooters when the defense starts collapsing on him.

[chonestown]

Just gonna have to post harder.

[coolhandluke121]

Our pg is not good creator nor a good shooter. His defense of course is v good. But offense or offense creation is a major problem

While Jrue might not be some ideal shooter, he made 41% from 3, and 52% of his long 2s this past year. No one on Boston did so well.

I'd say he's a perfectly fine shooter for the shots he takes. He's not spotting up for wide open 3's like Grayson, after all. It's his floor leadership and carelessness with the ball that drives me nuts. His handle isn't actually that bad but he acts like he can handle like Kyrie sometimes, with predictable results, and he throws some incredibly lazy, casual passes.

If it were just that, he could easily atone for it most nights, but throw in the fact that he doesn't seem to have any sort of monitor for recognizing when the team is playing too much hero-ball and needs leadership (if anything, he responds to those offensive funks by compounding the issue), and you have a recipe for some brutal, protracted offensive slumps for the entire team. George Hill is the only guy on the team with the floor leadership to help the team get out of its own way on offense (not counting Luca lol), but he's hurt, he can't play as many minutes even when he's healthy, and his skills have declined.

Grayson Allen has an anti-stagnation mentality too, but he's not a primary ball-handler so all he can do is wait for his teammates to stop being dumb in order for his game to come to fruition.

[Iheartfootball]

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I was just coming to post that. So the series is actually Bucks 1.5 / C’s 0.5.

[ABucksFan]

Side note: Grant Williams is a dirty af, been so all series. Does subtle little things

Whatever. Every time a team plus the Bucks physically, we think they are dirty. What do you think other fans think of the Bucks? Especially Giannis with the way he plays bully ball?

There's a difference between being physical and being intentional with dirty plays.

[PG Graveyard]

Our defense seems like it should be there for us, but we need to clean up a bunch of things on offense to win this series now. Should be easier at home, but we make nothing easy for ourselves.

[PG Graveyard]

Just gonna have to post harder.

I'm going to leave it all out there on the game thread Saturday.

[GoldenAntlers]

When it comes to refs, I just wish they would officiate the same in the regular season as they do the playoffs. I don't understand the "well, now that the games matter we aren't going to call fouls," mentality. I'm all for letting the players play, but do it all year so players know where the line is. Does this happen in other sports?

[jute2003]

Side note: Grant Williams is a dirty af, been so all series. Does subtle little things

Whatever. Every time a team plus the Bucks physically, we think they are dirty. What do you think other fans think of the Bucks? Especially Giannis with the way he plays bully ball?

There's a difference between being physical and being intentional with dirty plays.

I dont think he is dirty at all. He flops like a bitch though. The play where he latched on to Pat's arm was an attempt to draw a foul.

[MickeyDavis]

It's interesting. After a regular season loss there are always a lot of crazy hot takes and overreactions (including from myself). But after the loss last night the takes are for the most part more nuanced, reasonable and thoughtful . What the hell is happening?

[drew881]

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This is actually very surprising to me since they had so many open 3s and we were jacking up crap.

So each game game so far has been 50-50 odds. I feel after last game this is the start of a gentleman’s sweep, with them paying back the favor. I hope I’m wrong because eventually one of these games is gonna be close.

[emunney]

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I'd have thought the Cs were ahead but pretty clear it was a lot closer than the score. We know from experience though that you can substantially outplay a team on this measure and still lose the series.

[CharityStripe34]

Bucks flat out were a step slower than the Celtics tonight. Whether it was getting by someone, getting a shot off or grabbing a rebound.

The good news is we've got the best player in the world. And he at least got some rhythm going in the second half. But we've got to keep HCA in these next two.

Underrated move that Bud kept the foot on the gas and made Boston still have to work well into the 4th quarter even though we had no real chance to win. Some coaches would have probably waived the white flag a lot earlier. Like you said, that let Giannis get into a rhythm and it also let him get a good feel for the Boston's defensive adjustments. It was almost like the 2nd half was some good practice for game 3. Hopefully that will carry over and Giannis will be able to set a better tone in game 3 than he did tonight. Grayson did some things in the 2nd half too that could carry over.

Fully believe that's what Bud was doing. Running more actions and set plays to be able to diagnose things for Game 3. Showing them that when they run more high-screen with some decent motion and ball-movement Boston's defense can be broken down. Especially when Freak is the screener.

[CharityStripe34]

It's interesting. After a regular season loss there are always a lot of crazy hot takes and overreactions (including from myself). But after the loss last night the takes are for the most part more nuanced, reasonable and thoughtful . What the hell is happening?

As ugly as the game was generally, I think relatively rational observers noticed that the Bucks started to actually play better in the second half and did some positive things. That and they got the split to retake home-court, which is always a major plus in a competitive playoff series.

Saw a stat somewhere that showed Gianni/Jrue were 6/25 in the first half or something, and the others were 9/12. For some inexplicable reason, the "Big Two" decided to go hero ball and never really ran a lot of actions and moved the ball. It changed some in the second half, but that was the inexcusable thing to me watching the game. They were trying to do their best Kyrie/Durant impression and it played right into Boston's hands.

The roleplayers in both games (generally) showed up ready to play and contribute. That's a great sign given that the roleplayers usually suck on the road. It's just that between Boston going full NBA-Jam mode and the Big Two sucking hard in the first half, the lead was too big to overcome.