Boston Celtics: 3 takeaways from dominant Game 1 win vs. Bucks

The Boston Celtics stole Game 1 of their second round series and drew first blood with a dominant performance on the road against the Milwaukee Bucks.

Remember the summer of 2018, when the Boston Celtics were the favorites to win the Eastern Conference? Expectations soared after they forced LeBron James and his Cleveland Cavaliers to a Game 7 in the Eastern Conference Finals, bolstered by the imminent returns of stars Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward to Causeway Street.

The story of the 2018-19 season, of course, was underwhelming. Boston struggled to match its lofty expectations throughout the year, and off-court drama surrounding Irving’s pending free agency plagued much of the media circus surrounding the team. And none of it mattered on a Sunday afternoon in late April in Wisconsin.

The Celtics played like the team they were supposed to be. They played like a team that was equal to the sum of its parts, for once, and like a team in which every cog knew its role in the machine. They played suffocating defense, shot 54 percent from the field and punched their opponent in the mouth to open a playoff series. The only difference between this game and what it was supposed to be? It wasn’t played in Boston.

The Milwaukee Bucks were the team the Celtics were supposed to be all season. They won 60 games, most of them by double digits, and possessed the likely league MVP in Giannis Antetokounmpo. They entered the second round of postseason festivities as the favorite against Boston, but you wouldn’t know it after the first game.

The Celtics dominated every quarter but the second en route to their most convincing win of the 2018-19 campaign, a 112-90 drubbing on the road against the East’s top seed, and the team with the best record in the NBA. Here are three takeaways from Boston’s dominant Game 1 win.