Dollars Humanly Sent the Celtics to Rainbow Bridge

In the third quarter of the Celtics-Bucks game on Wednesday night, the Celtics reluctantly spun a Giannis Antetokounmpo-Eric Bledsoe player at the top of the key, and Giannis suddenly escaped a rebound pass to Bledsoe on the short roll, where he could attack a scrambled defense of the Celtics. What followed was 36 seconds of Bucks humiliating the Celtics deliriously and ridiculously:

As difficult as it may seem, this sequence preceded the hour of garbage, which was eventually plentiful. It would be great if you could report this mess, when the Bucks have six possessions without the Celtics getting one, and let's say this is the moment when the Celtics finally let go of the last shreds of their will to compete. Things did not go as planned: the Bucks converted exactly zero of those possessions into points, then Terry Rozier came back in the other direction and fell into a jumper to sort things out. But the Celtics had already lost 16 points at this point in the game and had only 60 points on the board. They already signaled, with their body language, offensive cohesion and defensive intensity, that they accepted their destiny. Thy showed up for the fifth match of Wednesday night for the official closing of the season, and the Bucks were very happy to help them out of their misery by winning a dominant victory of 116 to 91.

Kyrie Irving, who finished the worst game in less than 25 in 33 minutes, started the game at a record pace to get rid of her recent threat of 30 shots against the Bucks. He had nine shots in the first quarter and seven in the second and seemed determined, more than anything, to give his personal mark to this match, whatever the result. Unfortunately, his tone looked like this:

The airball is nil, but stick to the clip long enough to appreciate the Kyrie defense totally indifferent to a weak block against Khris Middleton. It was his night more or less – Kyrie made 5 shots of 16 from the ground in the first half and finished the night with as many shots missed (15) as points (15) and three turnovers for only one assist. For a guy who was supposed to be Boston's best player and who insisted on the importance of getting rich after the fourth game, Kyrie looked like mostly shit in this game and this series, and the Celtics with Kyrie as centerpiece have never made much progress towards unlocking Milwaukee's defense through these five games. For his part, Kyrie finished the series with more shots in total (104) than total points (102). The highlights of YouTube Dawkins was kind enough to put together a Kyrie reel of "highlights":

What was particularly encouraging for the Bucks and discouraging of the Celtics is the strength with which the bench players from Milwaukee have managed and even surpassed Boston's famous depth. The bench of Milwaukee organized the decisive race of the fourth match; in the fifth match, they combined for 49 points, and with Malcolm Brogdon in the fold, they have an impressive depth in capable and useful winged players. Brogdon, who played for the first time in the playoffs, scored 10 points on the bench Wednesday night and finished over-16; George Hill was again lively and masterly; Sterling Brown, who played respectable minutes in the first four games of the series, was put back on the board until the end of time. And Pat Connaughton is frankly like someone who has blocked the "UPGRADE" button on the current version of Gordon Hayward.

The Celtics are now entering a potentially unstable summer, watching Anthony Davis on the trade market * and wondering if Kyrie Irving would prefer to play for [gulp] the New York Knicks. The Bucks are heading to the Eastern Conference finals for the first time since 2001 and will retain field advantage in a series of conference finals for the first time since 1974.