Was it predicted on here, or somewhere else, that the Bucks would win by 50, I don’t remember?
That was me. I'm the Coach Bud of prognosticators. (I didn't exactly predict they would win by 50, but I asked if anyone would be surprised by such a result).
Is this true? Seemed like Miami scared the shit out of most Celtics fans. Bill Simmons and Ken Tremendous had a podcast about it several weeks ago.
Speaking of Simmons, he was flogging the point for months about how the Cavs screwed up by giving up Kevin Love for nothing, that Love could have helped them, and could be a useful playoff piece for Miami. Well, he was right about that one, sick as I got of hearing about it.
I don’t think Miami is all that scary. They were a better team last season, and a Celtics squad that was not as good as this year’s team outplayed them.
Miami shot
47.6% (!!) from 3 through the first 4 games. (In game 5, 37..8%, so they probably graded out around 44% for the series) That, plus Butler and coaching can beat anyone. Doesn't seem sustainable though.They've gone from being one of the worst regular season offenses to the best offense in the playoffs. There's gotta be some regression around the corner.
Also, great as he is, Jimmy Butler is not 7'6". Some coach is going to do a better job at getting the ball of out of his hands and making the other Heat players beat them. I don't think CJM has the acumen for the job, so I'm going to go with Coach Thibs.
where was the Giannis-guarding-Butler adjustment anyway?
Free throws were 45-17 Bucs. It was more than even.
Had the Bucks used their challenge already?
it was a huge push-off by Butler but refs are never going to call that in that situation— too many things they are trying to track— and credit Jimmy for taking advantage.
The Lowry Middleton review was a good case study for instant replay. You could see the refs were thoroughly in "shook by the crowd" hometown mode and calling everything for Mil. In the old days, that would have been one of those games where Mil gets gifted enough calls to pull it out and we have to watch incensed YouTube videos breaking down the scandalous calls.
I think that if Giannis was 100% for the full series they probably win, but at the same time, I can't blame the loss on his injury (I don't know if that makes any sense). He may not have been 100% when he came back, but over these two games he averaged 32/15/8 and shot 53% from the field. Those are monster numbers, better than any playoff run he's ever had. His play wasn't the difference.
I don't know. He was clearly shook in the 4th and OT here— besides the missed FTs, he was throwing the ball all over the place. One can speculate that it was the injury getting his head, but how would anyone know? Also: small sample size, but it matters a tiny bit to me that the Heat were already cooking and up by 10 in G1 when Giannis got hurt. Had the Bucks been cruising early, it would be easier to string together a narrative that Mil was the better team but got thrown out of rhythm when their star got hurt.