CELTICS ROLL SEVEN
Connect 22 times from deep in deciding-game rout
Over seven games, 15 nights and 336 minutes, the Bucks tried to frame their second-round series with the Celtics as a bet.
That they could successfully isolate Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown against Giannis Antetokounmpo, the greatest player in the world, and Jrue Holiday in a tilted contest of stars.
That Boston’s role players couldn’t rescue Tatum and Brown, even when left alone to make 3s from the corner. That Grant Williams and Derrick White would, in fact, shoot enough 3s to hurt their own team instead of Milwaukee and hand over the series.
They wagered wrong. The Celtics sent the betting Bucks packing with a 109-81 blowout in Game 7 before an explosive afternoon crowd at TD Garden. Williams trumped Tatum’s 23 points with a game-high 27, six rebounds and two blocks. He drilled seven 3-pointers and broke the NBA record for most 3-point attempts in a Game 7 with 18.
“I told (Williams), ‘let it fly’,” Celtics coach Ime Udoka shared after the game. “They were disrespecting you more tonight than earlier in the series.”
Brown scored 19 points and grabbed eight rebounds, while Marcus Smart pocketed 11 points, 10 assists and seven boards.
Boston will now travel to Miami for Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals on Tuesday for an 8:30 p.m. start, a rematch of their 2020 series that sent the Heat to the NBA Finals.
The Celtics led for the entirety of Sunday’s second half, thanks to a defiant and defining third-quarter stretch.
After Tatum picked up his fourth foul with a 10-point lead and 7:44 left in the quarter, Boston deployed a lineup it had used in just eight regular-season games and 26 postseason minutes. White came off the bench for Tatum to join Williams, Brown, Smart and Al Horford, veterans in arms against the defending champions. What should have been Milwaukee’s runway to a tied game became a trap door to elimination.
Together, the White-Williams-Brown-Horford-Smart lineup, outscored by 6.9 points per 100 possessions in the regular-season, grew the lead to 15 heading into the fourth quarter. Boston’s humming slash-and-kick offense became gash-and-can every 3 in sight, with Williams and White hitting from downtown around successful rim attacks by Horford and Brown.
Williams knocked down three triples on his own.
“Grant won us a playoff game tonight,” Tatum said. “A Game 7.”
The Celtics netted 31 points in the third quarter, far more than they had scored in the first or the second. Antetokounmpo (25 points, 20 rebounds) scored just four points around several misses and two turnovers, the second a traveling violation that spurred the entire crowd to stand, scream and signal for a walk.
“We knew we had to get back in transition to keep them off the break. That’s how they score against us, and you have to guard them in the halfcourt,” Williams said. “And guys made big plays and big shots.
Once Tatum returned with a 79-64 edge to start the fourth, he scored or assisted on 12 of the Celtics’ next 15 points. Boston stretched its lead past 20 within minutes. It was a Garden party long before the final buzzer sounded, the steeled Celtics burying the wagering Bucks from 3-point range.
Boston took 55 of its 88 shots from distance, cashed 40% of them and made 42% overall.
“We felt we were very close to having a real good game offensively, kind of blowing it open,” Udoka said. “We hadn’t played our best and got some tight wins, but it was great to save our best for last as far as that, and defensively, as well.”
Meanwhile, the Bucks bricked their way to a 36.7 field goal percentage, dragged down by a 12.1% showing on 3-pointers. Defensively, the Celtics held Milwaukee to 17 points in both the second and fourth quarters.
The second half shootout was a significant departure from a tense first half that squeezed out a 48-43 Celtics lead.
Antetokounmpo controlled the first quarter almost single-handedly, coming two rebounds and four assists shy of a triple-double. Between his scoring and playmaking, he accounted for every Bucks point before taking a brief breather in the final minute. Milwaukee led for the final 10:23 of the quarter.
With Antetokounmpo on the bench, the Celtics closed on a 6-2 run, despite woeful shooting around Tatum and Brown. Boston trailed 26-20 entering the second quarter and soon unleashed their frustrations at the rim.
Attacking the paint with a renewed ferocity, they sent Bobby Portis to the bench with his third foul and picked up a pair on Holiday and Wesley Matthews. Brown tied the game at 30all by finishing through contact, then Payton Pritchard hit Horford underneath with a pocket pass he converted into a dunk. The
Celtics lost all momentum during an ensuing 7-2 Bucks run, then leapt back into the fire with back-to-back 3s from Tatum and Williams.
Around two scoreless minutes, Antetokounmpo and Holiday forged a 4040 tie.
Over the last three minutes of the half, Boston wrestled its way to more points: a Tatum reverse layup, a Smart put-back dunk and Smart foul shot. Milwaukee punched back, drawing an offensive foul on Tatum with seconds left, his third. After an unsuccessful challenge, Smart picked Antetokounmpo’s pocket and drew a shooting foul in his scramble for the ball near mid-court, eerily reminiscent of the foul he’d drawn to close Game 3.
Smart canned all three foul shots, giving the Celtics a cushion entering halftime, when they unknowingly began charting their path back to the Eastern Conference Finals.