Milwaukee Bucks: 5 keys to win playoff series against the Boston Celtics

4. Drive and kick

The Celtics have made their strategy for this series abundantly clear; force the Bucks to take shots outside of the paint. Throughout Game 1, they constantly walled off the paint by sending multiple defenders to cut off the driving lanes for Antetokounmpo and others.

It was a tough adjustment for Milwaukee as they committed eight first quarter turnovers including two each by Antetokounmpo and Beldsoe.

During the coaches interview at the end of the first quarter, head coach Joe Prunty eluded to his team needing to do a better job of driving and kicking. The open shots were there, but Milwaukee just wasn’t able to take advantage of them.

Milwaukee finished the game 8-of-21 from downtown which isn’t bad but could certainly be better. Now, I’m not saying they should constantly launch threes, as a lot of their success this season has happened because of their ability to score inside. However, they have to be more willing to kick it out to the open shooter and allow him to either attack by shooting the ball or getting to the rim. It’s a lot easier to attack a defense that’s in scramble mode than one that’s set.

The Bucks never quite fully committed to this throughout Game 1 so let’s see if they can make the adjustment after some film review.