PG: 2-2

[Bucksfan28]

Just want to point out again on Horford's elbow that he was on the way down with his elbow below Giannis' face, then brought it back up and down with force. A technical foul was not enough.

Don't worry according to the NBA community that's ok because Giannis fouled him and also does the "same thing" every time he drives.

Like, at this point I wish Giannis was as violent as he gets accused of being.

[DrWood]

Takes me back to when that guy was on our roster and we won a championship.

By closing with Giannis at center lineups.

Oh no I actually meant the forward that was on our team who had the ability to defend 1-5, switch to pretty much anybody on the court and (historically) knock down the open three.

OOOOOOOOH. You mean the guy who only exists in the imagination of some of you folks.

[theFireBlanket]

Just want to point out again on Horford's elbow that he was on the way down with his elbow below Giannis' face, then brought it back up and down with force. A technical foul was not enough.

This is why Giannis mentioned the refs. They do it subtly every game, beat him up. "Can't call everything".

We aren't the badboy Pistons. They are.

The Raptors were. Giannis is the 7ft MJ.

[DrWood]

Scalabrine on the Celtics post game was even asking where Jevon Carter was last night. Said he bounces around, makes good decisions with the ball, he passes and plays good defense. Wondered why we're playing Hill over him.

Regular Season +/-

[theFireBlanket]

Scalabrine on the Celtics post game was even asking where Jevon Carter was last night. Said he bounces around, makes good decisions with the ball, he passes and plays good defense. Wondered why we're playing Hill over him.

Regular Season +/-

Jevon hasn't been perfect but when defense is letting up, he'd be a good plug. Tight rotation be damned.

[theFireBlanket]

Also, what happened where smart and Giannis were on the floor on the other side of the court in a key defensive play? Was at the game so couldnt tell if smart was just being smart of if Giannis was too tired/frustrated to get up.

Smart did his usual "we got tangled up so I'm going to fall" thing and it wrapped up Giannis. Could've been called for a foul, probably should've. Then it was 4v4 on the other end and we decided to try and double at half court, Celtics got an easy 2. Super cool and smart play by us.

I blamed Smart at the time for keeping Giannis on the ground but they showed multiple replays and Giannis was making absolutely no effort to get disentangled, looked like he popped a few Xannies.

Giannis seemed to purposefully keep him locked up. The false attempt to lift him up & push legs down was a dead ringer.

I wouldn't attempt to get up first, while entangled with any of Smart, or any other starter but Tatum. Those guys are all liable to cheap shot you.

[MartyConlonOnTheRun]

Gonna say it again, the biggest benefactor of the toe on the line was Jrue. He is Bledsoe 2.0 except he shoots twice as much and if we get bounced in the 2nd round last year he’d be run out of town right now.

I swear it looks like he has the Joel Stave yips and has lost all muscle memory for how to shoot a basketball. All his shots and fadeaways from midrange look more like heaves than jumpers. Like he’s pushing the ball toward the hoop.

Bledsoe? No way. Despite sucking, he hit some insanely clutch shots down the stretch in that series. No chance Bledsoe does that.

I get hot takes after a loss but this Bledsoe stuff is crazy.

yeah, i started making Jrue Bledsoe jokes in my head and then looked back at the stats. Yikes. Forgot how bad Eric was.

That said, we didn't trade 4 1sts and give a max salary slot to Bledsoe. If we dont beat the Celtics and have another early exit next year, a declining Jrue making 2/70m while paying repeater tax could be disastrous for this Bucks team and the chance to retain Giannis.

[ampd]

Bucks have gotten outscored by 41 points with Giannis on the bench this series (109 minutes). They're plus 97 in 323 minutes with him on court. That differential is INSANE.

Yep. And that's where we really miss Middleton. Giannisnis the best player in the series by a country mile.

It's also kinda hard for me to blame roleplayers when during some of those stretches there was zero chance they were getting the ball unless they literally went and stole it from their own pg.

[Gant]

Bucks have gotten outscored by 41 points with Giannis on the bench this series (109 minutes). They're plus 97 in 323 minutes with him on court. That differential is INSANE.

Yep. And that's where we really miss Middleton. Giannisnis the best player in the series by a country mile.

It's also kinda hard for me to blame roleplayers when during some of those stretches there was zero chance they were getting the ball unless they literally went and stole it from their own pg.

The stats quoted above have got to be mistaken. After 4 games, there have only been 192 minutes played total in the second round match up.

Giannis is +2.75 per game. +23, -11, -2, +1. (+11 total through 4 contests). He's played 156 minutes.


Through four games Derrick White is leading both teams in +/- at +10.3 per game. Horford is at +8. No one else is close.

Carter leads the Bucks, but he's averaging less than 11 minutes.

Other notables (rounded up): Tatum +4.3, Brown +1.3, Holiday -9.8

[Wooderson]

Bucks have gotten outscored by 41 points with Giannis on the bench this series (109 minutes). They're plus 97 in 323 minutes with him on court. That differential is INSANE.

Yep. And that's where we really miss Middleton. Giannisnis the best player in the series by a country mile.

It's also kinda hard for me to blame roleplayers when during some of those stretches there was zero chance they were getting the ball unless they literally went and stole it from their own pg.

The stats quoted above have got to be mistaken. After 4 games, there have only been 192 minutes played total in the second round match up.

Giannis is +11 total in the Celtics series (+2.75 per game). +23, -11, -2, +1.


Through four games Derrick White is leading both teams in +/- at +10.3 per game. Horford is at +8. No one else is close.

Carter leads the Bucks, but he's averaging less than 11 minutes.

Other notables (minutes rounded up): Tatum +4.3, Brown +1.3, Holiday -9.8

Woops the filter reset, that was overall playoffs.

Yeah he's +11 in 155 min and they're -28 in only 37 min. That off number doesn't even seem real it's so bad.

Per 100 +2.4 on, -38.4 off.

Hilariously the Bucks are +25.2 per 100 with Jrue on the bench. Major small sample size and lineup considerations, but this matches up with some important runs.

[theFireBlanket]

Yep. And that's where we really miss Middleton. Giannisnis the best player in the series by a country mile.

It's also kinda hard for me to blame roleplayers when during some of those stretches there was zero chance they were getting the ball unless they literally went and stole it from their own pg.

The stats quoted above have got to be mistaken. After 4 games, there have only been 192 minutes played total in the second round match up.

Giannis is +11 total in the Celtics series (+2.75 per game). +23, -11, -2, +1.


Through four games Derrick White is leading both teams in +/- at +10.3 per game. Horford is at +8. No one else is close.

Carter leads the Bucks, but he's averaging less than 11 minutes.

Other notables (minutes rounded up): Tatum +4.3, Brown +1.3, Holiday -9.8

Woops the filter reset, that was overall playoffs.

Yeah he's +11 in 155 min and they're -28 in only 37 min. That off number doesn't even seem real it's so bad.

Per 100 +2.4 on, -38.4 off.

Hilariously the Bucks are +25.2 per 100 with Jrue on the bench. Major small sample size and lineup considerations, but this matches up with some important runs.

Jrue shouldn't be the fall guy. Bud, Ham, Lee... Somebody on that coaching staff ought to be able to switch up the current role without bringing him down. You can build him up, while constructively talking fundamental issues with the shot selection & iso. The problem is GA is guilty too, he's just freaky & more efficient.

[aboveAverage]

Ran out of gas, and this ain’t Brooklyn like last season. Boston is a complete team. Very few flaws.

Still, I feel like we can make adjustments and get the lead back in Boston. Maybe Boston will be a bit overeager and we can capitalize on that. Jrue will play smarter. Role players might hit shots, who knows. All I’m saying is never count the Bucks out.

[DingleJerry]

Still too much Giannis dribbling and driving into the pile of people like the Tor series rather than what they did last year to win the title. They really haven't flipped that switch back to him essentially being a C like I was hoping.

[FAH1223]

We could very well lose this series, but not because we're not outplaying Boston.

Read on Twitter

Had a feeling last night was going to look like this. First three games were coin flips on this for the most part with a very slight edge to us.

Paint shots didn't go down, lots of opportunities

Plus the times Holiday did get Lopez on a switch, he couldn't convert..

[greekbuck34]

I think we take Giannis for granted.

He needs two things for a championship. 3p shooting around him and a playmaker. That's all.
No bench, not another all star, no home advantage nothing else. Just those two things.

We give him absolutly nothing on offense this series against the best team and defense in the league, he is missing his 2nd best scorer and his second best player of the series is 35y Wes Mathews instead of Jrue Holiday.

We are 2-2 right now and we are disappointed somehow anyway. Why so many jumpshots Giannis? Why is he so tired? Why he is dancing in the 3q after 10 minutes of dominance? Why can't he score more in the 4th?

Tatum and Brown are completely trash for 90% of the series and yet we can't get away from them because of Holford and other role players.
Memphis role players are better than Morant this post season.
Durant and Kyrie suck ass and yet the Nets keep the games close because of their role players.
Embiid is having 15-18 points and the Sixers win anyway with Maxey and Harden taking over games.
Luka looks terrible at home twice in a row and the Mavs win fairly easily anyway due to 3p shooting and Brunson.

Where is Bobby?
What happened to Lopez 3s? He just stands under the rim bringing his defender inside and making Giannis driving even more difficult.
What happened to Allen and Pat?
How is it possible for Jrue to miss so many open jumpshots and layups two seasons in a row?

Can we have 1 great game from someone else other than Giannis?
We just needed 1 great quarter from someone last night and we got nothing.

[BUCKnation]

Jrue is getting a lot of stick here, some deserved. I thought he too frequently went iso ball, just looking for his own shot, rather than moving the ball, even a little bit (Giannis too). To that end though, I thought most of his shots were good looks. That missed shot, under the basket late, summed up his game well. As many have mentioned, this team doesn't value possessions, both he and Giannis waste too many with early shot clock looks (Giannis particularly so). I think this is why this team has an inability to expand their leads past 10. Seems like we get comfortable, lose a bit of focus or relax, run a stupid set and don't score and eventually on the other end give up a couple of easy buckets. I'd be curious to see what the non-transition FG% or PPP is on sets with one pass or less.

Last game toward the end, we at least spammed the Giannis/Jrue PnR.

Very frustrating game, I was legit upset about that, which is more rare now. It's like they learned nothing from the last game after quickly blowing their 3rd qtr lead. It was legitimately deja vu, but they made everything instead of going on a long drought.

Did Horford have a kid? Annoying he has decided to play like this after looking washed the last 3 years. Even if they are open, you expect him to miss a couple at least.

[FrieAaron]

We just needed 1 great quarter from someone last night and we got nothing.

Giannis had 6 points on 7 shots in the fourth quarter, and Jrue had 1 point on 5 shots. That's poor efficiency on half of our shots. The others had 21 points on 11 shots. Lopez went 4/5 and had 10 points. Nobody else that played got more than 2 shots. And in this one, that basically tracks for the entire game. Who exactly had the opportunity for a great quarter?

[BigO]

There's a difference between respecting the floor-spacing of guys like Horford and Grant Williams, and completely selling out to stop it. I get it, it was frustrating as hell to watch Al go prime Dirk for an entire game, but some of the solutions being offered here are weird as ****. Help off of their two best offensive players in Tatum and Brown so Al can't have open above-the-break 3's? Deny Al the ball? Go super small and give up your biggest advantage this series (size, paint defense) just so you can maybe "get a hand" in Al's face when he's this hot? If you're altering your defensive game-plan around stopping Al Horford then congrats, you're doing exactly what Boston wants, and you've already lost the series.

The solution is to play the Celtics straight up, just as they do, with the possible exception of their sometimes doubling Giannis. There is no reason doubling any of the Celtics and there is no reason to leave Horford wide open to double someone else.

I never saw Grayson Allen or Portis (who should have played a lot more) wide open, but I sure saw Horford open a ton,because the Bucks were doubling others.
Boston plays an honest man defense utilizing a lot of switching.

This is where a guy like PJ shines. He'd be speaking up and holding everyone accountable, besides playing great defense.

[BigO]

Jrue is getting a lot of stick here, some deserved. I thought he too frequently went iso ball, just looking for his own shot, rather than moving the ball, even a little bit (Giannis too). To that end though, I thought most of his shots were good looks. That missed shot, under the basket late, summed up his game well. As many have mentioned, this team doesn't value possessions, both he and Giannis waste too many with early shot clock looks (Giannis particularly so). I think this is why this team has an inability to expand their leads past 10. Seems like we get comfortable, lose a bit of focus or relax, run a stupid set and don't score and eventually on the other end give up a couple of easy buckets. I'd be curious to see what the non-transition FG% or PPP is on sets with one pass or less.

Last game toward the end, we at least spammed the Giannis/Jrue PnR.

Very frustrating game, I was legit upset about that, which is more rare now. It's like they learned nothing from the last game after quickly blowing their 3rd qtr lead. It was legitimately deja vu, but they made everything instead of going on a long drought.

Did Horford have a kid? Annoying he has decided to play like this after looking washed the last 3 years. Even if they are open, you expect him to miss a couple at least.

What's frustrating is leaving guys like Horford open. He's in a groove and the Bucks knew it going into the game.

What's also frustrating is that I picked the Celtics in 6 without Khris, but the game was so winnable, except for coaching blunders. I don't blame Bud for the offense, as they scored 108 without KM. But I blame him to a large extent for the defensive meltdown in the fourth quarter.

[greekbuck34]

We just needed 1 great quarter from someone last night and we got nothing.

Giannis had 6 points on 7 shots in the fourth quarter, and Jrue had 1 point on 5 shots. That's poor efficiency on half of our shots. The others had 21 points on 11 shots. Lopez went 4/5 and had 10 points. Nobody else that played got more than 2 shots. And in this one, that basically tracks for the entire game. Who exactly had the opportunity for a great quarter?

Since Bobby did not play at all it has to be Jrue.
Jrue missed all 5 of his shots in the 4th. He makes 3 of those and we probably hold out to win the game just like in the last one despite Holford not missing any shots or Tatum and Smart making tough contested lay ups.
It's a miracle Giannis scored 6 more points in the 4th considering he could barely walk up the court at times.