The Boston Celtics are moving onto the Eastern Conference Finals after a 109-81 shellacking over the Milwaukee Bucks. Boston will face off against the top-seeded Miami Heat on Tuesday night.

After a competitive first half in which Milwaukee only trailed by 48-43, the Celtics came out firing with threes made by Grant Williams, Jayson Tatum, and Jaylen Brown and at that point it was going to be a tall task for Milwaukee to win this game.

Boston’s strategy in Game 7 was daring Grayson Allen, Wesley Matthews, and Pat Connaughton to beat them from three which turned out to be a great strategy as Milwaukee shot a futile 4-33 from three.

Giannis Antetokounmpo left everything out on the floor, but in the end was gassed having to pick up the scoring load from Middleton. Antetokounmpo scored 25 points in Game 7 and grabbed 20 rebounds but did not have consistent help offensively to get past the Celtics.

Observations from the first half:

• Wesley Matthews has been the primary defender of Jayson Tatum in this series, but for a few possessions Jrue Holiday guarded Tatum as Holiday is Milwaukee’s best on-ball defender and Tatum did not make a shot when defended by Holiday.
• Brook Lopez was called for illegall defense, I believe that is the first time that has been called in the playoffs.
• The momentum of this game changed when Giannis committed this foul before the half.

Observations for the second half/game

• Milwaukee’s strategy of playing drop coverage and let Boston shoot threes’ did not work. Boston rained in 22 threes (the highest amount of threes in a Game 7 in NBA history).
• By that same token, Milwaukee dared Grant Williams to shoot and Williams obliged by draining seven threes on his way to a playoff high 27 points. That must have forgotten that Game 2 performance where Williams hit six threes. I think it’s safe to say Grant Williams can shoot the basketball.
• Payton Pritchard went 4-6 from three and scored 14 points off the bench.

Having Khris Middleton in Game 7 would have made a difference. Middleton is Milwaukee’s best perimeter player and an underrated weapon on offense. Middleton being out, forced other guys to try and step up and while Bobby Portis and Pat Connaughton had great games, Grayson Allen did not play well nor did Wesley Matthews who while did an ok job guarding Jayson Tatum, but added nothing offensively.

Playing George Hill over Javon Carter continutes to baffle me. There is nothing George Hill does that says he needs to play playoff minutes. Javon Carter is a much better defender than George Hill yet he only saw action in garbage time. On that same note, where was Serge Ibaka? Ibaka saw a lot of action while Lopez was out, but barely played once Lopez came back. I would have liked to see Ibaka play way more than he did in the playoffs because he is still a capable defender in the league.

This was a tough loss, but thanks to everybody for reading and following along throughout the playoffs, being able to blog about my favorite team is a dream come true and S/O Mental Dimes for giving me the opportunity to do that. With that being said, good luck to the Boston Celtics the rest of the way and thank you to both teams for an amazing seven game series.