The Milwaukee Bucks and Boston Celtics will meet to see who moves on to the Eastern Conference Finals. How do the point guards for each team stack up?
This Sunday, the Milwaukee Bucks and Boston Celtics are going to tip-off in what is one of the most anticipated series of the NBA playoffs’ Conference Semi-Finals round.
Both teams are coming off of dominant sweeps in the first round and are led by superstar players such as Giannis Antetkounmpo and Kyrie Irving. With LeBron James no longer casting his large shadow over the entire conference, and the Philadelphia 76ers and Toronto Raptors stumbling slightly in the first round, it’s easy to imagine either of these teams making it to the NBA Finals.
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The matchup will see numerous great individual battles between Bucks and Celtics players like Khris Middleton vs. Jayson Tatum, Brook Lopez vs. Al Horford and Giannis vs., well, everyone.
But the matchup that I believe will decide who will move on to the next round concerns the two point guards, Milwaukee’s Eric Bledsoe against Boston’s Kyrie Irving.
There’s no doubt that the NBA is a point guard driven league and that’s even truer come playoff time when ball-handling, individual shot-making and playmaking are at a premium. Without an All-Star caliber point guard or at least a ball-dominant shooting guard, it is incredibly difficult to advance in the playoffs.
That’s why I believe this particular point guard matchup that will ultimately decide whether the Milwaukee Bucks or Boston Celtics move on to the Eastern Conference Finals.
On the one hand, we have Irving, one of the game’s elite point guards, and a walking bucket who already has an NBA championship to his name and is trying to guide a new and young team to the title.
On the other, we have Bledsoe, who doesn’t have the same accolades or talent as Irving, but is nonetheless crucial to the success of the Bucks’ gameplan on both ends, and is in the midst of a career-best season.
I’ll explain why this matchup will decide the winner of the series, explain what this upcoming series means to Bledsoe’s career, look back at how the two have battled one another so far, and then finally, pick a winner.
Let’s get to it.