3 keys for the Milwaukee Bucks to keep their season alive in Game 7
The Milwaukee Bucks need Jrue Holiday’s best shooting game of the series in Game 7
If there was ever a time for Jrue Holiday to step up and have a hot shooting night, having it come in Game 7 would be fantastic!
Holiday has had two games in this series at 50 percent true shooting or higher but none at or above league average true shooting (57.8 percent). His best game came to open the series with 25 points on 55.2 percent and in Game 6 he had 17 points on 50 percent true shooting. He just has to be more efficient if the Bucks want to pull out this Game 7 win.
I understand that it’s a lot to ask of Holiday to dominate at both ends of the floor. He’s tasked with guarding Tatum or Brown or Smart every time down the floor and has done a good job. I get why he’s struggling and I’m glad he’s remained aggressive, but getting an efficient 25-plus point game from him today would make Antetokounmpo’s life much easier.
He has had success against certain Celtics players. Holiday is shooting 9-of-18 on 2-point shots against Al Horford and 10-of-21 overall against Brown. As you can imagine, he’s struggled against most other players on Boston given his overall shooting numbers but perhaps they can try to get him more favorable matchups against Horford, Brown, and someone like Derrick White or Payton Pritchard.
Holiday and Antetokounmpo are the only two guys who can break down a defense and get their own offense as well as create for others. However, Holiday isn’t used to being the number two and having the defense key in on him for a whole series.
That, along with the energy he has to use on defense, can lead to some ugly shooting nights as we’ve seen. But we’ve also seen him come through in big moments and there’s no bigger moment than a Game 7.