It was a good win. I did not get to see the whole game but I know what people are saying. It never felt like we had it in hand. We would be up say 15, MIL would get an easy bucket, and I would find myself thinking the game was slipping away. Then we would get a couple of buckets and be back up 18 and I still didn't feel we had the game in hand.
MIL played really good defense in the parts that I saw. They were forcing us to do the pick and roles way too far out. But our ball movement was enough, we were getting some open shots, and in the end, it was never really close (even if it felt close).
Historically, it has seemed to me that the second game is more representative of the rest of a series than the first game. I have no stats to prove this, just my impression from years of watching. A game 1 can be an outlier but things have settled in by game 2. We shall see. We are going to need Smart and Brown so I hope they heal up in this extended layoff.
Our lack of depth has been really exposed. White in for Smart is a big drop off. Pritchard gets hot what, once every 4 games. Theis is not even playing. Grant was great last game but he is not going to do that every game, teams adjust. I didn't understand not playing Theis. Horford and RWill both had 5 fouls. If Theis is on the floor, he would be getting a couple of these fouls. Theis has not looked good, but I think we need to put him out there some to protect Horford and RWill.
Milwaukee never had a chance. We figured out how to guard Giannis early and the game was pretty much over after that.
The only thing giving life to the bucks was Adam Silver's referees. They were abysmal. they showed replays of every foul on the big screen in the arena and a ton of them were horrible calls.
The bucks had no answers for us, and their offense devolved into Giannis barreling wildly into the lane and getting bailed out. With fair officiating we win by 40.
Yeah it’s not like they mounted a furious comeback. We thrashed them early and then played a mostly even game in the second half. It never got to single digits IIRC.
I think we feel nervous with big leads because we’ve so often been burned early in this season and last season. The team went away from what was working offensively for stretches of the second half last night but it was never out of hand.
Yes, exactly. This team is still in the process of maturing but they have made great strides. There really is no reason in any given moment we can't at least match points. The Bucks are giving us some really good looks despite their good interior defense.
They basically are betting that we're going to choke and miss shots. But in this league that won't work for long. This isn't the 2018 team. Give an opponent enough practice 3's and they'll start making them and getting major confidence. That's actually a big part of why we lose to bad teams sometimes. but in that case it's more due to our inconsistent effort. but that inconsistent effort leads to open shots which leads to confidence.
Here it seems Budenholzer must be convinced that Tatum, Brown, and our bigs will eviscerate them inside unless they constantly double and clog the paint.
Which IMO is a losing strategy and will continue to bite them. The C's played strong man defense and the Bucks used constant double teams, which generated easy perimeter looks for us.
One thing I will say though is that the Celtics shooters need to do a better job of coming towards the ball when the ballhandler is getting trapped. Too often they are lingering far away, making for a dangerous cross-court pass. I'd like to see someone cutting into the lane nearby the ball handler and THEN kicking it out.
Topic: Bucks (1-0) at Celtics (0-1) Round 2 Game 2 5/3/22 (Read 29749 times)