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Bucks Preview: Game 1 at Celtics

The Bucks start off their season with a tough test in Boston, but with the Celtics on the second night of a back-to-back and missing Gordon Hayward, it won’t be as hard as you might think it would be.

Boston Celtics

  • 53-29 last season, lost in conference finals
  • 106-100 against Bucks all-time
  • Have made the playoffs nine of the last ten seasons, starting with their 2007-2008 championship

Offensive Key

Last year, it felt like the Bucks lived and died depending on how many turnovers they gave up. I crunched some numbers and found that when they won, the Bucks turned the ball over fewer than 13 times a game (to be clear, these are individual turnovers without counting team turnovers). When they lost, they turned it over more than 14 times a game. I guess this makes 13 the magic number, so if the Bucks can limit themselves to 13 turnovers or fewer, they will put themselves in a good position to win this season opener.

Defensive Key

Well, I was going to say that the Bucks had to make sure to limit either Kyrie Irving or Gordon Hayward (since limiting both would be just about impossible), but Hayward caught a pretty nasty leg injury last night so that doesn’t apply any more. By default, that means that limiting Kyrie Irving will be key. In other word, the Bucks can let him score, like, 27 points, they just can’t let him score, like, 45. This also means they can’t give up any heroic, last-minute three-pointers to him, either. As long as Kyrie doesn’t play out of his mind, the Bucks will give themselves a chance to win this one.

Seriously, though, I hope Hayward gets better. The more talented players there are in the NBA, the more obvious it is that it’s the best league around. Anyways, tune in at 6:30 PM CT to see if the Bucks can start their season with a W!