On April 28, Beijing time, two days ago, the Celtics swept the Nets 4-0, and at that time, they expected that their semi-final opponents were likely to be the defending champion Bucks. Just today, that speculation was confirmed, and after the Bucks beat the Bulls 116-100, they will face the second-placed Greenshirts in the East. Although the Bucks are further ranked and the Celtics also have home advantage, many fans still believe that the Bucks are better.
Just because the Bucks have a superstar alphabet brother, their advantage is very obvious, and the Bucks' lineup depth is much better than the opponent. Let's take a look at the lineups of both sides, the Bucks No. 1 is Holliday, no. 2 is Matthews, No. 3 is Alphabet Brother, No. 4 is Portis, No. 5 is Dalo; Celtics No. 1 is Smart, No. 2 is Jaylen Brown, No. 3 is Tatum, No. 4 is Horford, and No. 5 is Thale. But judging from the lineups of both teams, except for the No. 2 position, which occupies a certain advantage, the Celtics are at a disadvantage in all positions. On the bench, the Bucks, with the likes of Connaughton, Allen and Ibaka, also have the upper hand.
Smart has defense, Holliday also has defense, and Holliday has a stronger ability to tandem the team, and the ability to protect rebounds is stronger; after Middleton's injury, the Celtics have an absolute advantage in the No. 2 position, Brown has a defensive and offensive, in the series against the Nets, he averaged 22.5 points, 5.3 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game, and 2.5 steals ranked first in the league, so Brown is likely to become the X factor of the two series. Although Matthews nominally plays the No. 2 position, he can only be used as an outside shooter more often, and the threat is not great, and the Celtics only need to guard his three points.
In the No. 4 position, Horford averaged 13.0 points and 7.5 rebounds per game in the playoffs this year; Portis contributed 11.6 points and 11.4 rebounds. Portis is more agile, faster, has a range, Horford is more experienced, but slow, mainly rely on the interior scoring, in the face of the double internal attack of Big Lowe and Portis, Horford may play very hard, after all, his defensive intensity when playing the Nets is certainly not as big as the Bucks, compared to Portis to have a slight advantage; Theis averaged 8.5 points and 6.5 rebounds per game on the No. 5 position; Da Luo averaged 13.2 points and 4.4 rebounds per game.
Similarly, Da Luo has defense, has an outside range, and has more offensive methods and more experience than Theis. The most crucial duel between the two teams is in the No. 3 position. Alphabet Brother averaged 28.6 points, 13.4 rebounds and 6.2 assists per game in the playoffs this year, shooting 56.8% from the field, and Tatum averaged 29.5 points, 4.5 rebounds and 7.3 assists per game, shooting 45.6% from the field. It seems that Tatum's data is more hot, but it is still that sentence, the Nets' defense and the Bucks are not at the same level at all, once they meet the alphabet brother, Tatum will play very badly, not only the score will drop, the shooting rate may also be reduced.
Alphabet brother averaged relatively few points per game, but his playing time was only 33.6 minutes, while Tatum was as high as 41.8 minutes, compared to alphabet brother playing more dominant and more efficient. Tatum is thin, and when facing the impact of brother Alphabet, more often than not, he can only rely on his teammates to help defend, and he can't defend himself. However, Tatum also has his own advantage, that is, three points, of course, against a team like the Bucks, Tatum's physical strength will definitely be greatly depleted, and his three-point shooting rate may be unexpected.
After officially confirming that his opponent was the Bucks, Tatum also called Griffin at the first time, asking him to teach him the secret of defending the alphabet brother, who also gave his own advice, Griffin's advice to Tatum is: upper body, block the first step, put the alphabet brother to shoot three points. Tatum agreed with Griffin's opinion and immediately went back to study the video of Alphabet Brother. Last year, the Bucks eliminated the Nets, but overall, Griffin has done a good job of restricting the alphabet brother, and in the current league, it is impossible for any player to want to defend the alphabet brother one-on-one.
Griffin's advice may be valuable, but Tatum has a lot to do and many challenges to face. After all, the alphabet brother gets the MVP, and the championship and the FMVP are not casual. For the Celtics, when Tatum alone can't defend himself against the alphabet brother, others have to stand up in time, such as Smart, such as Jaylen Brown. Although Theis and Horford are inside players, it is difficult to withstand the impact of the alphabet brother's monster body, and the small defender is small, fast, smart, hard, and the defense is more timely. This series between the two sides is destined to be a contest between the top defensive teams, and it may be difficult to divide the winners and losers without 5 or 7 games.