The Milwaukee Bucks lost a game they could have won to the Boston Celtics 111-105 when their offense faltered in the fourth quarter. Khris Middleton contributed 11 points and five assists in 23 minutes of play, while Damian Lillard and Giannis Antetokounmpo scored 61 points between them. Conversely, the Celtics were led by Jayson Tatum with 34 points, followed by Jrue Holiday with 20 and Jaylen Brown with 25. Check out our in-depth analysis of the game here, and listen to the Bucks+ podcast Bucks In Six Minutes for a six-minute audio recap below.
What Did We Discover?
It goes without saying that Khris’ return will help Milwaukee, but I wanted to talk about Giannis and how he can lead the charge to defeat this awful squad as the snake’s head.
This game, in my opinion, was a step in the right direction for the Bucks, and particularly Antetokounmpo, in terms of attacking the Celtics’ switching defense. First of all, scoring against the Celtics is the basketball equivalent of having your brain operated on. That may be a bit excessive, but you get the idea. Although the Celtics’ defense has very few weaknesses, there are ways to exploit if you move the ball around a lot and cause the defense to flex. Which alternatives are those? First of all, Boston can swap 1-4 with ease, so you need to get the centers (Queta, Horford) involved and make them double or switch with their fives. After that, you can win. Milwaukee did a decent job of that, in my opinion, by having Dame target those players in the high pick and roll.
Alternatively, you can play bully ball. Boston typically uses one center and four guards/wings. They are ready to take this chance because they don’t really have somebody ideal to watch over Giannis. Why? To be honest, I believe it’s because they don’t think Antetokregularly match rightarlymatchesright mismatches and 2) successfmatches. ose mismatches. And even though he wasn’t flawless last night, I thought that Giathisfar wasttackbest performance. Anecdotally, it felt like he much more methodically backed down his man until he got himself in a position to score. As I mentioned above, the Celtics believe they can guard Giannis with guards and wings. Remember last season’s first game in Boston? He ended that game shooting 7/20. I thought Antetokounmpo was playing out of control. Boston tried to force him to speed up and jump out of his comfort zone, and it worked.
Bits of Bonus Bucks
On 2/10 shooting, Khris finished with 11 points, 5 assists, and 3 rebounds. Considering everything, I felt he looked really solid out there, even though it doesn’t appear all that fantastic.
With nine points, three assists, and eighteen (!) rebounds, Bobby Portis had one of the most peculiar stat lines. A TEAM-BEST +7 in plus/minus, somehow. I’m going to leave that one for you all.
It’s noteworthy that Andre Jackson Jr. only played twelve minutes, and I can’t say that I felt it was a horrible choice in this specific game.
The Taurean Prince, who had been battling his illness for a few games, went out.
Middleton’s return consumed Delon Wright’s minutes.
At least Milwaukee managed to neutralize Payton Pritchard, a regular Bucks killer.
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