I think the Celtics being heavy underdogs will really help them.
They seem to function best that way. I think they are underdogs the rest of the way so go underdogs!!!
#4 seed against the #1 seed, touted as the second-best team in the NBA behind the Warriors. It's time to live that underdog role. Rather be a dog than be a favorite.
I find Bucks as the 5th or 6th best NBA team in the league.
GSW, BOS, TOR and HOU teams have the highest upsides.
All of those teams have a path to the title.
They have the most versatile and switchable defenses,
while also being able to threat from the 3 pt line from all 5 positions.
That was my preseason impression and nothing swung it for me enough to change my opinion.
MIL and PHI are the 5th and 6th.
I am still undecided about Philly's starting 5, minus their shallow bench, equitation. To have a firm stance.
We will find out soon.
Yeah, you're REALLY underrating the bucks (and probably overrating the Celts). They are the favorite in this series and rightfully so. Let's not lose sight of what that means; this is likely the end of the road for the Celts.
Of course, the games have to be played and Kyrie could certainly go super nova in the series. I'll be watching and rooting for the Celtics and obviously, hope we can pull the upset.
I try not to dwell over regular season success so easily. Last year we beat them without our 2 main players. The argument that they are a much better team now, often menu, doesn't stand here. As Kyrie and Gordon are bigger additions than anything Bucks did over the past year.
Well, I’d say your the top candidate for the rip van winkle award. And, even if we take your premise of using last year as the barometer, the biggest reason we won was home court. We don’t have that this year.
You're not really providing any reason as to why he's wrong. You're just saying it as if it's a definite fact. The Bucks have improved since last season, obviously. But they also haven't proven anything yet. Beating up an effectively Blake Griffin-less Pistons is nothing impressive.
We too are a much better team than our playoff team was. We have a considerably deeper team than we did then, as well as having more top talent. We also matched up with them well this season, despite having numerous injury concerns every time we played them.
To say the biggest reason for us beating them last year was HCA is very dismissive of our coaching, defence and individual efforts.
Well first of all, I am a Celtic fan. So I'm not going to write out detailed case for why the bucks are favored (and thus, should win). But the arguments about last year mean very little frankly. So because we beat them once we'll never lose to them? Of course not. That's silly, especially in light of the fact that teams change every year.
The bucks have the best record in the league and arguably, the best player too. He is better than he was last year. He has better players around him; different players even. Last year means close to nothing. Meanwhile, the celts have better players but have been considerably worse than last year.
So we shall see what happens. I am not rooting for the bucks. But I'm not blind to the idea that the Celts are fighting an uphill battle.
You wrote earlier that last year we only won because of HC adv.
But you also write that last year means nothing.
Logically we can conclude that (Bucks) HC adv. means nothing.
It means nothing, because it is this year, and not the last year.
However stating that last years series win means nothing is incorrect.
There is at the very least this psychological factor. We beat them, then felt that.
They know they lost to us without our best 2 guys, yet now they are in this weird position of being favorites.
This winning on the road thing, as far as I have observed, is closely related to the overall team talent, coaching and experience. If you have enough of those, and I think Celts have them, you have a good shot at winning any (road) game. Do Bucks have that? I am not that sure. Worth noting, they won 0 games in Boston last years series.
You obviously value regular season team results much more than I do, and that might be the starting point of our, cosmically irrelevant, disagreements on this topic.