Muscala was acquired by the Celtics at the trade deadline last Thursday and he's already made a strong impact in his first three games. Thats how the two 51-31 teams wound up seeded second and third, respectively, with the Bucks getting their preferred first-round clash with Chicago while the Celtics had to face Brooklyn (a presumably tougher foe at the time). Feels like Thursday night in Milwaukee should decide who gets 2 seed.Win in Chicago tonight would go long way towards ensuring no Raptors draw. Boston also has to travel to Memphis to face the No. Tiebreaker vs. Celtics: Have the tiebreaker 2-1 over the Celtics. at ET. It could be a huge matchup. TWO HUGE DEFENSIVE PLAYS BY JRUE BUCKS GO UP 3-2. pic.twitter.com/qx678hYiLf. 3 seed would be pretty important to each of these teams, as it would mean landing on the opposite side of the bracket from Phoenix, which would delay a potential matchup with the No. 9:27 pm ET, at Thats why Phoenix ends up behind the other squads on this list. While Dallas entered Tuesday a firm plus in their minutes, the defense has predictably not been great when the two share the floor. Remaining strength of schedule: . Brooklyn controls its own destiny to pass No. Nickel column:Here's why Giannis Antetokounmpo should be the NBA's Most Improved Player, More:As the NBA playoffs approach, the Milwaukee Bucks are tightening their rotation with four key players off the bench. But while the Bucks deserve a ton of credit for making plays, Boston certainly helped them out with a disappointing offensive approach down the stretch. However, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton, Brook Lopez and Bobby Portis are all listed as doubtful Sunday. Bostons remaining schedule is split evenly between home (26-12) and road (21-17) and includes head-to-head matchups with both Miami (Wednesday) and Milwaukee (April 7). He's currently the leader at 30.4 per game. There's even a scenario where Philadelphia finishes second and the Celtics third, but no one needs that big of a popsicle headache this early in the morning. The G League Ignite guard has been toward the top of several draft boards ahead of the 2023 Draft. Miss those and we're potentially talking about a 20-point Celtics win. RotoWire considers the best player values in Yahoo fantasy leagues for Tuesday night's 10 game slate. 9:26 pm ET, at Facing elimination, Jayson Tatum steps up with 46 points for the Celtics, who withstand another brilliant performance from Giannis Antetokounmpo. Their remaining opponents have a combined win percentage of .509, with five of their final six games coming against opponents over .500, with the only exception coming in the regular-season finale against Orlando. Please enter a valid email and try again. If they lose to the Bucks on Thursday, though, Milwaukee will own the tiebreaker and likely drop Boston to No. Boston sits at +215 on the moneyline while the . And time is running out for this team to properly gel before a deep run. "Surgery can be season-ending, so you dont want to do that. The Celtics launched 43 and made 17, with an 8-of-15 opening barrage. Teammate Marcus Smart, burned on a pair of pivotal plays in Game 5, claimed he didnt sleep between the two games. We'll get a good idea whether Boston or Milwaukee wants the two-seed when they send out their starting lineups Thursday night. Even before then I had questions about this teams halfcourt offense and how it will hold up in the postseason. The Milwaukee Bucks (22-10) and Boston Celtics (23-10) meet Sunday at TD Garden.Tip-off is scheduled for 5 p.m. 131. Four teams have a chance to punch their ticket to the postseason on an 11-game Wednesday night. Khris Middleton had 27 points and 13 rebounds, and the Milwaukee Bucks topped the Boston Celtics 121-119 on Wednesday for their eighth consecutive victory. A matchup against the Nets without Williams isn't ideal, but it's still a series the Celtics should win if they're really as good as they've been the last four months. It doesnt feel entirely impossible for the Wests current third seed to sneak into the Finals. Yet Budenholzer stopped the break, then wound up out of the timeout with his star taking a rare and unsuccessful corner 3-pointer. 7 Cleveland. Bucks Tuesday NBA injury report, odds: Boston can clinch crucial tiebreaker but facing longest odds in nearly 2 years with Jayson Tatum out, other starters questionable It's a potential Eastern Conference playoff preview tonight when Boston visits Milwaukee, but the Celtics are short-handed. As of Feb. 27, the Raptors have a 45 percent chance of making the 2023 NBA Playoffs, according to FiveThirtyEight's projections. Ime Udoka on Celtics confidence: Were a basketball team, not a track team. Joel Embiid recovers from a slow start to finish with 29 points, but Giannis Antetokounmpo erupts for 40 to lead Milwaukee past the 76ers. 3 seed, they'll probably need to go through both the Bucks and 76ers to reach the NBA Finals. At the end of his 10-point run, they even used him as a decoy to set up a 3 by his sidekick Jaylen Brown. pic.twitter.com/tg1XByX2sq, wow jrue holiday comes out of nowhere to block smart and then throws the ball off him, BIG BUCKET BY BOBBY!! 7. 9:39 pm ET, at The challenge for the Celtics will be trying to help White keep up this level of play when Smart is back in the lineup. newsletter. 8 spot: Raptors:vs. Sixers, vs. Boston has two games remaining -- Thursday in Milwaukee and Sunday in Memphis -- while the Bucks (vs. Celtics, at Detroit, at Cleveland) and 76ers (at Toronto, vs. Indiana, vs. Detroit) each have three. Will Russell Westbrook still be starting? Collectively, so far only three teams have clinched a playoff berth, while five teams have been mathematically eliminated. The Pelicans, not so much. Call 1-800-GAMBLER. Bucks vs. Celtics. So, whether were out there playing we play to win. Holiday then closed for the Bucks with five points of his own to help his team take an advantage into the fourth. This team has been through too many battles for me to put them any lower on this list. Had a couple cortisone shots to see if itll work. Falling into the three-seed wouldn't be the worst thing to happen to Boston. After the defending champs dispatched the Chicago Bulls last night, the Eastern Conference Semifinals is set between Milwaukee and Boston. 2 seed by way of the fourth tiebreaker if it beats Memphis and Milwaukee splits its final two. The Chicago Bulls (28-34) play against the Toronto Raptors (31-32) at Scotiabank Arena Live Stream: fuboTV (Watch for free) NBA League Pass: The most live games plus NBA TV. And it messed with their play. The Toronto Raptors haven't left themselves any wiggle room. That best two words in sports clich might be getting old, but Game 7s themselves never do. All Rights Reserved. But as Holiday saw it, there was no overcoming Bostons 3-point prowess in this one. Boston couldnt get closer than six the rest of the quarter with Middleton scoring six of his 16 first half points from that point on. A day after formally signing Argentinian guard Luca Vildoza, the Bucks waived injured forward DeAndre Bembry to once again open up a 15th and final roster spot. The Bucks jumped the Celtics for the No. Here's why Giannis Antetokounmpo should be the NBA's Most Improved Player, As the NBA playoffs approach, the Milwaukee Bucks are tightening their rotation with four key players off the bench, Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. Budenholzer said there is no minutes restriction on Hill. pushes Philly a game further back and gives us the tie-breaker against them. The 13-time All-Star, who was dealt to Phoenix on Feb. 9, has not played in a game since Jan. 8 when he was with the Nets. And the depth next to Giannis is now the best its ever been. Later on, Giannis Antetokounpo and Jrue Holiday hit back-to-back 3s in the final minutes to tie the game at 105-105. They didn't do any of that in the final few minutes, and they paid the price. Celtics have the tiebreaker over 76ers, so things are trending toward #Bulls vs. Boston in playoffs. Free trial Game Time: 7 He hasn't always been consistent on the offensive end, but he is a complete game-changer on defense, as he reminded everyone on Wednesday. A team that finishes the regular season in either ninth or 10th place can do no better than the No. Would we expect anything different? Which takes if to the fourth tiebreaker: record vs. Eastern Conference playoff teams, which Boston has clinched at 20-13 with the best Milwaukee can do being 18-15. 2 seed when it could very likely mean a first-round matchup with the Nets? Below are five big questions that will be answered in the coming days. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference. Miami has six games remaining in the regular season, with just two at home (they are 27-12 at home this season) and four on the road (21-16), including one back-to-back. Preview capsule for the Boston-Milwaukee Eastern Conference semifinal series that starts Sunday: No. But what he did in saving the Celtics season for at least another 42 hours or so upped his profile and reputation another couple levels. The Mavericks are just 35 since Kyrie Irving debuted for Dallas after the teams home loss to Indiana on Tuesday. The problem is experience. 2022 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. Falling to fourth would likely set up a first-round meeting with the Toronto Raptors, a team that is rolling right now. None of them did more about it than Tatum. All rights reserved. 2022 Playoffs: East Semifinal | Celtics (2) vs. 2004-2023 CBS Interactive. Frankly the deck seemed stacked too high against Tatum and his team, particularly given Bostons meltdown in the closing minutes of Game 5. Boston forced overtime with a high-arcing 3-pointer from Sam Hauser. 8 seed from Brooklyn, as the Nets would be guaranteed to play the No. Had James Hardens 3-point attempt gone down before Embiids putback attempt was blocked, these teams could be flip-flopped in the standings. It puts Boston at -200 to advance. After the Bucks went on a huge run between the third and fourth quarter to erase a 12-point deficit and lead 99-97 with 8:48 remaining in regulation, White scored back-to-back baskets to put Boston back ahead 101-99. If KD and Chris Paul can stay healthy, its hard to see this team losing. 4 seed in one scenario: A Bucks win Sunday or a 76ers loss in either of their final two games will lock Boston into no worse than the . He was 2-of-3 on 3-pointers, they were 5-of-26. Holiday shot 8-of-12 from beyond the arc. This teams depth is a double-edged sword, though. Counting on Durant and Paul to stay on the floor for four rounds is a dicey proposition, though. The Heat, Bucks, Celtics and Sixers are separated by just 1.5 games with less than two weeks to play. section: | slug: 2022-nba-playoffs-five-big-questions-entering-final-weekend-including-a-complicated-bucks-celtics-tiebreaker | sport: basketball | route: article_single.us | With the teams bunched so tightly, even a single game can alter the standings. MILWAUKEE Five takeaways from the Boston Celtics 108-95 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks in Game 6 Friday at Fiserv Forum that evened their Eastern Conference semifinal series, 3-3, and force Game 7 on Sunday afternoon in Boston (3:30 ET, ABC). That would set up the possibility of a C's-Bulls first-round matchup if Boston loses to Milwaukee on Thursday. 3 in net rating. 4. They led by as many as five until the Bucks took brief leads of 115-114 with 5:39 left and 118-116 with 4:47 to go. There were plenty of reasons for the Celtics' collapse, a number of which have been detailed above. As a reminder on the Play-In, if Brooklyn were to finish the regular season in either seventh or eighth place, they would play the 7-8 game with the winner securing the No. Raptors NBA Playoff odds. Way to find a way to win Celtics. At some point, it would be nice to see this group put together a sustained run of success. The most obvious problem is All-Star wing Khris Middletons continued absence with a left knee strain. Bucks: vs. Celtics, at Detroit, at Cleveland Sixers: at Toronto, vs. Indiana, vs. Detroit Boston has by far the hardest schedule, although the Grizzlies are locked into the Western Conference's No. Bostons Jayson Tatum already had a flashy resume, from three All-Star appearances and an All-NBA selection to a contract paying him upwards of $163 million from this season through 2025-26. However, when it comes to strength of schedule, Philadelphia has the easiest schedule remaining as their opponents have a .404 combined win percentage. 4 Sixers by one game in the loss column. All Rights Reserved. To get to Embiid's 30.4, Giannis would have to average over 47 points over his final two games. Here are the remaining schedules for the Celtics, Bucks and Sixers with all three teams sitting at 49-30. In case of a three-way tie between Milwaukee, Boston and Philadelphia, which remains a possibility, the tiebreaker criteria is to recognize division winners first, which would remove Philadelphia from the equation as Boston would win the Atlantic division via a better division record. The Celtics own the tiebreaker over the Sixers by virtue of their division record 9-7 vs. How Celtics Tiebreakers With Bucks 76ers Break Down . Here are the order of the tiebreakers and how they would play out. But it all goes back to whether or not teams want the two-seed. After Antetokounmpo picked up his fourth foul with nearly 20 minutes left in the game, the Celtics got wrapped up in trying to force his fifth and, hey, maybe his sixth. 1 team until the conference finals. His numbers in the series already were ridiculous, and they got dialed up in Game 6 when he became only the third player in NBA playoff history to score at least 40 pounds, grab 20 rebounds and pass for five or more assists. 8 seed. Outside keeping everyone healthy, the Celtics' goal should remain the same: Prioritize beating the Bulls and Bucks to earn the No. The Celtics (50-31) have one game left in Memphis on Sunday while the Bucks headed right to the airport to play Detroit on Friday and then wrap the regular season in Cleveland on Sunday for a matinee. People will question Denvers defense, even though its played at a top-10 efficiency with Jokic on the floor. The Celtics led by 12 points at one point in the third quarter, but the Bucks made a huge run and hit several clutch shots late in the fourth quarter to take a 116-113 lead with 7.4 seconds remaining. Jayson Tatum scores 12 of his 46 points in the 4th quarter to send the series back to Boston for Game 7. 9:30 pm ET, at The Sixers have three games against teams over .500 (Charlotte, Cleveland and Toronto) and four games against teams not only under .500 but all under .400 as they face Detroit and Indiana twice. And no one needs to be reminded about the vaccination kerfuffle the Celtics may encounter should they need to head cross the border. The Bucks failed to cover as 2.5-point underdogs in a 118-100 loss at the Brooklyn Nets Friday. 9:29 pm ET, at Much has changed since we last ranked NBA title contenders headed into the new year. Still a game to be played between Mavericks and Jazz that could change how this tiebreaker would pan out. All rights reserved. 5 spot for Utah. 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