Same poster made the last 2 playoff threads. I think it's SoSH tradition to let him make the ECF one too. Probably not online but I already @ him. Patience.
Celtics vs. Bucks, Round 2 Discussion
- Thread starter tims4wins
- Start date
I’ve been waiting for this team to get back to this exact place. I will have no patience, good Sir.
I’m mostly teasing.
Just wow.
Coming into this game, I thought the best case for the Celtics was that they easily could have won 5 games in this series. And the best case against the Celtics was that they could easily have won 5 games this series.
The first half had me thinking that this was the Celtic team that dropped a pair of winnable games. The exception to their struggling was Tatum playing well offensively, but Tatum picked up a stupid foul and then 2 more quick ones and Ime pulled him late in the half with the Celtics up 2.
With the ball, a 2-point lead, and only a bit more time on the game clock than shot clock, the Celtics rushed their shot (a Brown miss) giving Milwaukee one last chance to score, setting the stage for a Marcus winning play. Giannis has the ball at the top of the key and Marcus goes for the steal, gets the ball with ~1 second left, and knows that the only thing he can do is put up a heave. He's got the ball near his feet, but is clearly bringing it up to shoot when Giannis, trying to get the ball back, fouls him. Refs call it a shooting foul - which it was, Marcus was shooting all the way there and it was obvious - but instead of a missed heave, he buried his 3 free throws; 48-43 Celtics at the half.
I was not feeling confident about this game at all at this point, but if there was a reason I should have been it was this: after the game opened with a very-reminiscent-of-game 1 Giannis show and the Bucks up 26-20 after one, the Celtics defense clamped down and held them to 17 points in the second quarter. And that proved to be a sign of things to come.
The Bucks defense in the first had one very clear strategy: pack the paint and let Derrick White and Grant Williams shoot all the want from three. This had mixed success in the first half. The packing the paint element really did shut down Celtics paint scoring - Milwaukee led the Celtics 10-2 in paint points in the first quarter. At the same time, White bricked his first two wide-open threes and then became relucant to shoot. He was very good in games 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and even shot well i the latter four, but those two early misses messed him up and he passed up another three to drive in and be snuffed by Lopez (who played his best game of the series). Grant also missed some corner threes, but he kept shooting, hit a couple of key ones, and was 3 for 8 at the half.
The Celtics broke this one open early in the third by playing great defense at one end and scoring at the other, with a lot of the offense coming from Tatum either setting up teammates. During the first 2.5 minutes of the half they went on a 13-6 run, with Tatum hitting a three, assisting on threes by Grant and Jaylen, and throwing a lob to Jaylen, giving the Celtics a 61-49 lead.
Over the next 2 minutes, the Bucks cut the lead to 10 and then what looks like disaster happens to the Celtics: Jayson Tatum picks up foul #4, an offensive foul, and Ime takes him out of the game with 7:44 to go in the third.
But even as Tatum sat for the rest of the quarter, the lead never got narrower. Smart assisted on a Horford layup and a Grant three around a Jrue layup, 68-53.
Then Smart is called for an offensive foul and then appeared to draw one on Giannis - but Milwaukee challenged, AND WON, with 5 minutes to go in the quarter. It looked like Portis scored on a putback but - offensive goaltending was called!
With 4 to go, Portis hits a 3 but Grant gets a dunk on a nice feed from Al. Smart is fouled and hits one. Giannis dunks, but then Brown drives for a layup and the lead is still 13.
With 2:12 to go, Grant drills another three, assisted by White, and the Celtics are up 16. Bucks cut it to 12, but then ice-cold Derrick White drills a three to put the Celtics up 15, 79-64, which is what the score was at the end of the third. After Tatum picked up #4 and came out, the Celtics outscored Milwaukee 16-11. That was huge. Overall, Celtics won the quarter 31-21, despite not having Tatum for nearly 8 minutes.
The 4th never got closer than 13. Pritchard and Tatum joined Grant, Smart, and Al, and Pritchard put on a bit of a show, finally kncking down his threes and also hitting the glass. Giannis was incredibly frustrated and Horford and Grant really limited him.
Coach Bud waved the white flag with 2:03 to go, and Nesmith and Fitts hit threes in garbage time.
In terms of individual performances, Grant Williams led all players in scoring with 27 points - this is also the first time in his Celtics career he led the team in scoring. He show 10 of 22 from the field, including 7 of 18 from three. Added 6 rebounds and 2 blocks. Led the team in +/- with +25 in 29 minutes.
Jayson Tatum played 39 minutes despite missing the last 8 minutes of the third due to foul trouble. He scored 23 points on 7 of 14 shooting, 5 of 9 from three, and added 8 assists, 6 rebounds, and a block. On the downside he had 7 turnovers, but 2 of those were offesive fouls, one was a ball lost out of bounds, and one was a pass out of bounds that I thought was a bad call by the officials. So maybe not as bad as your typical 7 turnover game.
Brown had 19 points, 2 rebounds, 2 steals, 2 turnovers. He's still struggling with his handle.
Horford scored only 6 points on 2 of 7 shooting from the field, but he also contributed 10 rebounds, 6 assists, a block, and some excellent defense.
Smart shot only 2 of 9, but had a double double with 11 points and 10 assists. And he drew that key fould at the end of the half when it was still a competitive game.
Payton Pritchard had a second half explostion, doing a lot of damage, most of it in the fourth. Overall, 14 points on 5 of 7 shooting (4 of 6 from three) plus 5 rebounds and 3 assists in 18 minutes.
Even Theis chipped in a couple of decent minutes in the first half - in 6 minutes he missed his only shot but had 3 rebounds, 2 blocks, and a steal.
The only guy who struggled was White who shot 1-10, 1-6 from 3, with 2 rebounds, an assist, and a steal in 18 minutes.
Coming into this game, I thought the best case for the Celtics was that they easily could have won 5 games in this series. And the best case against the Celtics was that they could easily have won 5 games this series.
The first half had me thinking that this was the Celtic team that dropped a pair of winnable games. The exception to their struggling was Tatum playing well offensively, but Tatum picked up a stupid foul and then 2 more quick ones and Ime pulled him late in the half with the Celtics up 2.
With the ball, a 2-point lead, and only a bit more time on the game clock than shot clock, the Celtics rushed their shot (a Brown miss) giving Milwaukee one last chance to score, setting the stage for a Marcus winning play. Giannis has the ball at the top of the key and Marcus goes for the steal, gets the ball with ~1 second left, and knows that the only thing he can do is put up a heave. He's got the ball near his feet, but is clearly bringing it up to shoot when Giannis, trying to get the ball back, fouls him. Refs call it a shooting foul - which it was, Marcus was shooting all the way there and it was obvious - but instead of a missed heave, he buried his 3 free throws; 48-43 Celtics at the half.
I was not feeling confident about this game at all at this point, but if there was a reason I should have been it was this: after the game opened with a very-reminiscent-of-game 1 Giannis show and the Bucks up 26-20 after one, the Celtics defense clamped down and held them to 17 points in the second quarter. And that proved to be a sign of things to come.
The Bucks defense in the first had one very clear strategy: pack the paint and let Derrick White and Grant Williams shoot all the want from three. This had mixed success in the first half. The packing the paint element really did shut down Celtics paint scoring - Milwaukee led the Celtics 10-2 in paint points in the first quarter. At the same time, White bricked his first two wide-open threes and then became relucant to shoot. He was very good in games 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and even shot well i the latter four, but those two early misses messed him up and he passed up another three to drive in and be snuffed by Lopez (who played his best game of the series). Grant also missed some corner threes, but he kept shooting, hit a couple of key ones, and was 3 for 8 at the half.
The Celtics broke this one open early in the third by playing great defense at one end and scoring at the other, with a lot of the offense coming from Tatum either setting up teammates. During the first 2.5 minutes of the half they went on a 13-6 run, with Tatum hitting a three, assisting on threes by Grant and Jaylen, and throwing a lob to Jaylen, giving the Celtics a 61-49 lead.
Over the next 2 minutes, the Bucks cut the lead to 10 and then what looks like disaster happens to the Celtics: Jayson Tatum picks up foul #4, an offensive foul, and Ime takes him out of the game with 7:44 to go in the third.
But even as Tatum sat for the rest of the quarter, the lead never got narrower. Smart assisted on a Horford layup and a Grant three around a Jrue layup, 68-53.
Then Smart is called for an offensive foul and then appeared to draw one on Giannis - but Milwaukee challenged, AND WON, with 5 minutes to go in the quarter. It looked like Portis scored on a putback but - offensive goaltending was called!
With 4 to go, Portis hits a 3 but Grant gets a dunk on a nice feed from Al. Smart is fouled and hits one. Giannis dunks, but then Brown drives for a layup and the lead is still 13.
With 2:12 to go, Grant drills another three, assisted by White, and the Celtics are up 16. Bucks cut it to 12, but then ice-cold Derrick White drills a three to put the Celtics up 15, 79-64, which is what the score was at the end of the third. After Tatum picked up #4 and came out, the Celtics outscored Milwaukee 16-11. That was huge. Overall, Celtics won the quarter 31-21, despite not having Tatum for nearly 8 minutes.
The 4th never got closer than 13. Pritchard and Tatum joined Grant, Smart, and Al, and Pritchard put on a bit of a show, finally kncking down his threes and also hitting the glass. Giannis was incredibly frustrated and Horford and Grant really limited him.
Coach Bud waved the white flag with 2:03 to go, and Nesmith and Fitts hit threes in garbage time.
In terms of individual performances, Grant Williams led all players in scoring with 27 points - this is also the first time in his Celtics career he led the team in scoring. He show 10 of 22 from the field, including 7 of 18 from three. Added 6 rebounds and 2 blocks. Led the team in +/- with +25 in 29 minutes.
Jayson Tatum played 39 minutes despite missing the last 8 minutes of the third due to foul trouble. He scored 23 points on 7 of 14 shooting, 5 of 9 from three, and added 8 assists, 6 rebounds, and a block. On the downside he had 7 turnovers, but 2 of those were offesive fouls, one was a ball lost out of bounds, and one was a pass out of bounds that I thought was a bad call by the officials. So maybe not as bad as your typical 7 turnover game.
Brown had 19 points, 2 rebounds, 2 steals, 2 turnovers. He's still struggling with his handle.
Horford scored only 6 points on 2 of 7 shooting from the field, but he also contributed 10 rebounds, 6 assists, a block, and some excellent defense.
Smart shot only 2 of 9, but had a double double with 11 points and 10 assists. And he drew that key fould at the end of the half when it was still a competitive game.
Payton Pritchard had a second half explostion, doing a lot of damage, most of it in the fourth. Overall, 14 points on 5 of 7 shooting (4 of 6 from three) plus 5 rebounds and 3 assists in 18 minutes.
Even Theis chipped in a couple of decent minutes in the first half - in 6 minutes he missed his only shot but had 3 rebounds, 2 blocks, and a steal.
The only guy who struggled was White who shot 1-10, 1-6 from 3, with 2 rebounds, an assist, and a steal in 18 minutes.
The funny thing is, I was listening to 98.5 this morning, and they were talking about "the Kelly Olynyk game" where KO scored 26 points in game 7 to help the Celtics beat the Wizards and they said they needed a "Grant Williams game". Amazing. What a prophecy that turned out to be!
It’s been said by a few folks in various places, but I think if the Celts and Bucks play this series 10 times, the Bucks win like once out of 10, and the Celts win in 5 or 6 games in most of the other results. They were the better team throughout and were unlucky to go to 7 games.
I think if you give them a healthy Middleton and us a healthy TL, it’s closer. But Celtics were better.
Ah, yes. Bucks without Middleton just didn’t have enough. Credit to them that they took it to 7. But they needed to end it on Friday.
BTW, it was a bit of a small part in the overall drama, but I was impressed with Theis today. When he came in - the 2nd maybe? - I said “Oh no, here comes a Giannis run” But he actually had some big defensive plays.
The story of the series is still simple. The Celtics embarrassed themselves, their fans, the organization, and all of the past Celtic champions.
The Celtics made 53 more 3-pointers than the Bucks in this series. Per
@ESPNStatsInfo : that’s the largest differential in 3-pt FG in a single series in NBA postseason history.
View: https://twitter.com/JamalCollier/status/1525973028483616769?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1525973028483616769%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbssports.com%2Fnba%2Fnews%2Fmath-problem-celtics-bury-bucks-under-weight-of-historic-3-point-margin%2F
@ESPNStatsInfo : that’s the largest differential in 3-pt FG in a single series in NBA postseason history.
View: https://twitter.com/JamalCollier/status/1525973028483616769?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1525973028483616769%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbssports.com%2Fnba%2Fnews%2Fmath-problem-celtics-bury-bucks-under-weight-of-historic-3-point-margin%2F
I feel like this is exactly what happened yesterday. Giannis only had 6 FTA on 26 FGA. The refs let them play and it was physical. Giannis was incredible for the first 10 minutes - 10 points, 7 boards, 6 dimes, scoring or assisting on 24 of their first 26 points. Then he totally disappeared and couldn’t make a bucket in the second half.
Man the Celts totally neutralized Grayson Allen in games 2-7. After shooting 4-8 overall and 3-6 from 3 in game 1, he shot 9-34 overall and 2-18 from 3 the rest of the way.
Also, Connaughton finally didn't play well in game 7 after having a pretty great series in games 1-6. 14 for 28 from 3 in games 1-6, 0-5 in game 7.
Also, Connaughton finally didn't play well in game 7 after having a pretty great series in games 1-6. 14 for 28 from 3 in games 1-6, 0-5 in game 7.
Maybe, but the C's were missing TL too. Not exactly a fair swap, but the series would be close. Probably still goes 7.
The core is pretty spoken for...what will they have $$$ wise? MLE?
Al Horford will be Brad's biggest roster decision between now and January 2023
MLE could be limited to the taxpayer MLE of $6.3M.
Trade exceptions are indeed their biggest salary slots; just need to pick the right assets to trade.
I genuinely didn't think we were going to go through after the heartbreaking loss on game 5.
I haven't watched the Bucks at all, so I don't have an opinion, but some of the Greeks I know followed them and just hated Middleton to such a degree that they thought his absence was a net positive. Probably an exaggeration, but maybe Middleton wasn't playing as well this year? I looked at this bb ref stats and it seemed that he peaked a couple of years ago.
I haven't watched the Bucks at all, so I don't have an opinion, but some of the Greeks I know followed them and just hated Middleton to such a degree that they thought his absence was a net positive. Probably an exaggeration, but maybe Middleton wasn't playing as well this year? I looked at this bb ref stats and it seemed that he peaked a couple of years ago.
Yup, and also Horford. It's looking more likely now that he'll be back, but I have to imagine he's available in certain scenarios.
The Celtics also have all future draft picks unencumbered in the Stepien sense. They can be major players if the right guy shakes free.
Good point. 10 of them!!!!
It would be nice if Wyc went Lacob with the tax and used those TPE's that Brad/Danny rolled with Gordo's exit/TT punt/DS buy low
$17.1M exp July 18 '22
$6.9M exp Jan 19 '23
$5.9M exp Feb 10' 23
https://celticswire.usatoday.com/lists/nba-boston-celtics-2022-traded-playewr-exception-tpe/
The point differential for the whole series pretty decisively favored the C's. I think in retrospect this series was one where the Celtics were the better team, adding Middleton and doing a redo I think makes it more of a tossup than a clear advantage to Milwaukee. But his absence was very conspicuous, their offense was trash if Giannis was not going to the hoop.
That is what I saw---Celtics are the better team, and also Milwaukee is the more experienced team and with the best individual player. Those dynamics can play out in either direction.
Also, while not as impactful as Middleton, Celtics essentially didn't have TL the whole series in any real way, and Smart missed a game. So "fully healthy" matchup helps both teams though certainly Milwaukee more.
Hearing a lot on the morning talk shows this morning that the series might have gone the other way had Milwaukee not punted away home court advantage the last game of the season, despite the fact that the Bucks were one half-second-too-late-tip-in away from possibly losing every home game they had this series.
Home teams went 3-4 in the series. The Celts went 2-1 in Milwaukee. I can buy the Middleton argument. I can't buy the home court argument.
I think Boston used the Fournier TPE to acquire White. But that would leave them with a trade exception of $15 million and change (from Richardson/Langford being sent into the Spurs White TPE).
The links below seems to confirm that the White went into Fournier's TPE:
https://www.nbcsports.com/boston/celtics/nba-trade-rumors-celtics-acquire-derrick-white-spurs-josh-richardson-deal
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/l/langfro01.html
Sometimes Spotrac is a bit late in doing updates on the detailed items like TPE's. If I understand the NBA trade rules properly (and "if" is doing a shit-ton of work here), the Celtics could have kept the Fournier TPE alive.
EDIT: Or, maybe the opposite. Thanks @wade boggs chicken dinner for the research.
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Agree that a few people reported when the trade was made that White was going into Fournier TPE but this article which was written in May - Ime Udoka Discusses Derrick White's Impact: 'the shots are just icing on the cake' - Sports Illustrated Boston Celtics News, Analysis and More - says that Cs trade for White using cap space so they still have the Fournier exception.
I think if they took White into the Fournier exception, they would have created two smaller exceptions for Richardson and Langford. They created 5 when they did all of the other moves so I'm sure they thought the bigger exception is more valuable than two smaller exceptions, even if the two smaller exceptions last longer.
The good news is that the POBOBS must be thinking that he's bringing someone in over the summer to use the exception.
Home court bought the celts a fair (maybe even slightly favorable) whistle in Game 7.Against a Milw team that uses whatever foul advantages it can, it helped.
I hate to say it, but SI is a terrible source for sports related data. Boston didn't have $15.2 million in cap space to accept White's deal unless they used the Fournier TPE. So on the face of it the SI wording is wrong. Either it was a straight swap of contracts (because they're a wash) or it was finagled as a non-simultaneous trade which would leave Boston with a slightly smaller, but longer lasting, TPE than the Fournier one (there'd be a roughly $1.5 million difference).
The language mistake was mine. I should have put as you did - it was a straight swap of contracts. I think the Cs had the option to match salaries (White had a $15.1M cap number while JRich was at $11.6M and RL was at $3.8M) or use the TPE and the Cs chose to match salaries and save the bigger TPE for this summer. This would explain why Spotrac still lists the Fournier TPE.
(I also don't believe trade exceptions are created when contracts are swapped but I could be wrong about that.)
Another article - View: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2955965-1-new-trade-idea-for-every-nba-team
- also mentions that the Cs have the Fournier TPE in play.
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Damn. Was hoping that was the way to land another big time player.
Thanks!
Would not be a bad fit at all. And with Milwaukee intent on pinching pennies against the tax (see: Tucker), he may very well be somewhere else next year.
Problem will be cost, I can’t see him settling for the MLE, so I don’t see the path to grabbing him.