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.