Milwaukee Bucks: Takeaways from 97-86 Game 6 win over Boston Celtics

Snell’s bells

While it wasn’t a pitch perfect night for him, the presence of swingman Tony Snell paid dividends for the Bucks in their win over the Celtics on Thursday night.

One of the reasons for that was Snell’s stout defensive play, as the 26-year-old played an integral part in helping the Bucks to be a well-oiled machine on that end of the floor throughout the game.

The advanced numbers back that up too as Snell posted the best defensive rating of any Bucks last night at 76.4 points per 100 possessions, per NBA.com/stats. In the 26 minutes Snell was off the floor, the Bucks allowed 108.7 points per 100 possessions.

Although Snell has yet to regain his long range effectiveness that he consistently displayed earlier in the season, the former Lobo played with a quick trigger from downtown whenever the ball swung his way, which the Celtics eventually started to respect as the night wore on.

In total, Snell put up six points on 2-of-6 shooting from the field (all coming from beyond the arc), two rebounds, one steal as well as one block and was a +13 in his 22 minutes and one second of play.

There’s certainly room for improvement for Snell, especially with the Bucks on the cusp of potentially winning their first playoff series in 17 years, but Thursday night was a good start for the California native to find his footing again in advance of Game 7.

Next: Win In 6 Podcast #211: Previewing Game 6, thinking about the future

The decisive Game 7 between the Bucks and the Celtics will go down on Saturday night at 7 PM central time at TD Bank Garden.