I was at the game tonight and came away thinking how stupidly this team plays.
The Celtics went up 11 when Tatum hit two Fts with 6.3 seconds left in the first. Brad inserts Semi for defensive purposes. The Cs left Hill drive to the hoop on the left side of their defense, and Semi leaves Connaughton in the opposite side of where Hill started his drive, and the Bucks make a big three at the buzzer to cut the lead to 8.
The Bucks reel off five straight points to make it a one possession game to start the second quarter, when the Cs miss two wide open jumpers, Al clangs an easy 8 footer, and Brown commits a stupid offensive foul. Lead squandered in a game where the Celtics really needed to frontrun.
The Celtics again push the lead to 8 in the second quarter, and let the Bucks tie the game up when they clang three consecutive three pointers, with Kyrie turning it over twice and missing a 10 footer during their run. The Bucks picked up three fouls early in the second, and a smart team, with quickness advantages in many spots, would have been driving to the hoop instead of hoisting brick threes. The Bucks turn an 8 point deficit into a 4 point lead in 3:22.
Third quarter, 4:12 left, Middleton and GA on the bench with 4, Celtics up 2. The Bucks have Illy, Lopez, Connaughton, Hill and Sterling Brown on the court.. Boston had KI, AL, GH, Smart and, for some reason Rozier against them. Boston makes only one bucket the rest of the way, with 6 Kyrie Fts. At one point, this scrub Bucks lineup makes six baskets in a row, interrupted only by two Kyrie FTs, and the Bucks run out to an 8 point lead they would not relinquish. Most egregious was Smart getting a top three pointer blocked by Connaughton, who runs out for a thunderous dunk. Hill has 9 points and an assist in this game turning run.
The Celtics start the fourth by fouling a three point shooter, then give up a GA layup, 2 FTS when GA fouled on a layup, a GA and-1 layup, a Mirotic layup, and a Bledsoe layup in the first five minutes of the quarter. Lopez banged a big three pointer to go up 8 after a Boston mini-run, and a GA and-1 off an offensive rebound pushed the lead to 11 and ended it. Layup, dunk, layup, layup layup 2 fts, and-1 layup, FTs. The entire quarter, the Bucks put up 33 points and made exactly ONE shot that wasn't a layup. A good team cannot allow a layup line in the fourth quarter at home in a crucial Game 4.