The Celtics are the perfect answer to the Bucks.

Horford and Grant Williams are two of the best Giannis defenders in the league, and if that wasn't enough, they are sending aggressive double and triple teams when he gets anywhere near the paint. Hell, I saw 4 Celtics jerseys trying to stop him on an inbounds play at one point. Giannis takes the most annoying ass concession three pointers against Boston because they build so stiff a wall Trump would name Joe Mazzulla Secretary of Defense if re-elected.

I watched a possession in the 2nd where Giannis kicked it out to Crowder because they were near triple-teaming him in the corner. Crowder was wide open, hesitated because of the rotating defender, then passed it to Ingles who had weeks to shoot it, then hesitated for the pass to the corner that he couldn't make because the defender cheated over slightly long enough for a defender to get to Ingles then stayed back on Holiday (?). That possession I felt embodied the entire second quarter. They could not hit water falling out of a boat all frame and it legit started getting in their heads to not brick yet another 3 (they were shooting a scorching 14% from deep at the time).

If the Bucks' inability to hit literally anything wasn't bad enough, the fact that Boston could. not. miss from deep only poured gasoline on the dumpster fire that was the Bucks today. The Bucks' defense is still heavily predicated on daring the opponent from beating them from deep, and the Celtics responded by doing things from distance that would be illegal in at least 29 other states. The Bucks started taking panic shots at points in the second which further killed any offense they mustered up because the Celtics would just toss up yet another three like it was nothing while Milwaukee was struggling just to put together an offensive possession.

Robert Williams might have been the single most impactful player tonight and he had 7 points off the bench in a game where Tatum and Brown scored 30+. That dude outhustled every Buck on the floor and it felt like every 50-50 ball just found him after a while because dude was getting rebounds in all types of congestion. There were so many possessions when the Bucks did everything right defensively except secure the defensive rebound and it ended up in a Celtic's hands for an easy bucket.

The Celtics put the Bucks in the league's two worst feedback loops in a way no one else can. Defensively, they force Giannis into awkward shots in the paint by changing his shot angles and introducing a second or third body into the shot attempt, forcing him to pass out to shooters, who for some reason are generationally dogshit against the Celtics and only the Celtics, forcing Giannis to spam shots including terrible 3-pointers and the cycle repeats. Offensively, they become 15 Steph Currys against the Bucks, which makes getting to the paint ridiculously easy when they force them to sell out completely to stop 3s they ain't gonna miss anyways.