Ugly Loss, But We Did Our Job. Now The Series "Officially Starts" Friday Night

[celticinorlando]

Couple of things:

1. I am more disappointed in how they lost. They were not even competitive. I could have accepted a close loss or one they showed a little more effort in. Felt like a regular season game in January.

2. I am happy they have the split. Best of 5. But they need to win Friday. Boston needs to dictate the series and not have to chase it.

3. At this point I am willing to give Giannis his points. They have to stop Middleton. He is killing them and always seems to. The 3 point shooting is what hurts Boston the most.

4. I am hoping Boston does not get 3 point happy themselves. Play inside out.

5. Last season vs this team the Cs were tied after 4 games coming home. They could not win on the road. Well it has been a long time since the Cs have even played a home game. Going 3-1 in four straight road games is pretty good. Now they need to set the tone Friday.

[gpap]

Celts did indeed win one on the road which is what they needed to do.

That said, they still have lots of room for improvement.

Tatum needs to play better. He hasn't even been a factor in this series.

Kyrie needs to trust his teammates a little more. In game 2, he tried doing too much on his own. Furthermore, the Bucks know the ball is going to be in Kyrie's hands and they're defending him accordingly.

Brad may want to stick with keeping Morris on the bench. I get Morris is a good match for Giannis because of his size but Morris sadly has the dubious ability of shooting the Celtics out of a game.

We need to see more of the Gordon Hayward we saw in game 4 vs Indy and in game 1 of this series. Hayward was also a no-show yesterday.

Finally, keep Rozier on the bench and have Hayward be the point guard for the 2nd unit. Yes, I know Hayward is naturally a small forward, but I've noticed he's very good when he's running the offense. I saw enough of Rozier and all his missed shots in game 2 to say that we really don't need or want him on the court right now. He's really hurting us.

I'm one of the more critical people about Morris but he have played well as of late, especially in this series. I agree with Hayward running offense in the 2nd unit.

Morris did play well in game 1, but in game 2 when the going got tough, he just kept shooting and shooting and then missing.
We've seen Morris do this before. Guess what I am getting at is we have very little margin for error. If Brad needs to tighten up the rotations, so be it. The NBA has unfortunately set up the playoffs so there's like 3 months in between each game, so if less guys need to play more minutes, fine by me. I am not saying not play Morris at all. I just think he should be coming off the bench and if he starts playing his usual isolated offense and it's not working, send him back to the bench.

[Chris22]

Timelord, please.

[RJ87]

Timelord, please.

Are we trying to lose? Even in the garbage time minutes he had in Game 2, his defensive positioning was terrible.

[angryguy77]

Unless middleton can shoot 10000% from 3 again, they are not winning in Boston.

MKE won in the most unsustainable way possible. Kyrie playing poor and them shooting lights out from 3. The odds of that happening again are not very good. A win is a win I know, but some win's just don't appear all that great when you see how the game went down.

MKE has shown nothing in these last 2 games to suggest they are as good as Boston. We'll continue to rough up Giannis in the paint and do a better job at closing out on the 3pt attempts.

[celticinorlando]

Milwaukee is a poor man's GS. They are good when the hit 3s in volume. Make them play honest basketball and they are average.

[Fafnir]

Unless middleton can shoot 10000% from 3 again, they are not winning in Boston.

Sadly I just kind of assume he's always going to shoot 50% from three against the C's. He's done it for two years now over 16 games!

[mobilija]

I think people are overlooking the fact that the Bucks played stifling defense in game 2. Celtics couldn't generate the easy 10-18ft jumpers that they got in game 1. First half the Celtics hit some tough shots, especially Brown, a bit of Morris and a bit of Tatum. 2nd half we weren't able to hit the tough shots. And throughout the game, passes weren't able to make it through traffic, Kyrie in particular sailed several off their mark (His passing accuracy was almost as bad as his shooting accuracy).

Gotta get back to the pick and pop game that was creating all those open jumpers. And pass with purpose and accuracy.

[Phantom255x]

.... AND it likely ends ...   

[j804]

Smarts defense and heart is the only thing that can regain momentum and turn this series around or Celts are toast

[Phantom255x]

Smarts defense and heart is the only thing that can regain momentum and turn this series around or Celts are toast

They're already toast pretty much. HAD to protect home court.

We took 1 at MIL but I doubt we'll be able to take another one there.

[Somebody]

And it starts with us handing them back HCA. Utter embarrassment of a showing tonight, especially in the third quarter.

[celticinorlando]

I really do not see them winning another game in this series.

The way the Bucks get to the FT line when the Cs just look at them, the fact Boston is so inconsistent on offense...pretty much done.

[rocknrollforyoursoul]

Smarts defense and heart is the only thing that can regain momentum and turn this series around or Celts are toast

They're already toast pretty much. HAD to protect home court.

We took 1 at MIL but I doubt we'll be able to take another one there.

Yup. That's two straight PATHETIC second halves. Such a disappointment.

And yeah, they need a heck of a lot more than Smart to turn this around.

What a bunch of underachievers.

[slamtheking]

Milwaukee is a poor man's GS. They are good when the hit 3s in volume. Make them play honest basketball and they are average.

pretty much describes the C's as well.  if the C's hit their 3's, the last 2 games aren't blowouts and quite possibly wins.  problem is that they've been way too inconsistent with shooting this year