Bucks hope to turn tide at home and clinch series against Celtics | Basketball

Both hold a 3-2 lead in their respective series and are at home Friday for Game 6. Defending NBA champion Bucks rallied from a 14-point fourth-quarter deficit to win 110-107 at Boston on Wednesday night as the Warriors squandered an opportunity to close their streak losing 134-95 at Memphis.

“At the end of the day, we can’t get too high with this,” Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo said after Bucks’ Game 5 victory. home and feel good about ourselves, but the job is not done.”

Although Milwaukee relishes an emotional victory and Golden State emerges from a stinging loss, trends in these series indicate the Warriors should feel more comfortable heading home.

Home-field advantage hasn’t meant much in the Bucks-Celtics series. The road team has won three of five games, including each of the last two.

In the first five games of the other three second-round series, home teams were 14-1. The Warriors are 2-0 at home against the Grizzlies after winning 142-112 in Game 3 and 101-98 in Game 4.

History suggests that the lopsided nature of Golden State’s Game 5 loss should have no carryover effect. The Warriors are the sixth team in the past 10 years to lose by at least 39 points in a non-streak playoff game. Four of the five previous losing teams have won their next game.

“Well, it doesn’t feel good to lose as much as we do,” Warriors guard Klay Thompson said. “At the end of the day, it’s just a loss and you clear it out of your mind and remember who you are. You come in and play with 100 per cent effort on Friday, and I like our chances.

The Grizzlies also have reason to feel confident, though Ja Morant is likely out for the rest of the playoffs with a bone bruise in his right knee. The Grizzlies have gone 1-1 against the Warriors since Morant’s injury and are 21-6 in games their All-Star guard has missed this season.

“We know how to react,” Grizzlies guard/forward Dillon Brooks said. “We know how to play with each other better than any NBA team.”

In the Celtics-Bucks series, the teams alternated wins in the first five games. The Celtics’ season hinges on that pattern continuing on Friday.

The series has already been full of returns. The Celtics want to close out the game by rallying from a 3-2 deficit and winning a potential Game 7 in Boston on Sunday.

“We had a golden opportunity,” Celtics coach Ime Udoka said after the Game 5 loss. “That’s the story here. It will be harder now. I have to go get two in a row. But what we’ve been doing all through this series and all through this season is bouncing back when we’ve been tested.

The Bucks took the series lead with a comeback in Game 5 as Bobby Portis scored the go-ahead basket on a missed free throw return from Antetokounmpo with 15 seconds left. Jrue Holiday sealed the win by getting a block and a steal in the final 10 seconds. Antetokounmpo had 40 points. The team that led at the start of the fourth quarter lost the last three games of this series.

In the past two games, the Bucks have outshot the Celtics 97-74 and hold a 32-18 advantage in second-chance points.

Bucks forward Khris Middleton will miss his ninth straight playoff game with a medial collateral ligament sprain in his left knee. Celtics forward/center Robert Williams III has missed two straight games with a sore left knee and is questionable for Game 6.

Three-time All-Star forward Jayson Tatum was productive, scoring 34 points in Game 5 and 30 in Game 4. in the first two games of this series. Tatum will need to regain his 3-point accuracy for the Celtics to win this series.