Bucks vs. Celtics 2019 Prediction: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Will Beat Boston In NBA Series

The Boston Celtics eliminated the Milwaukee Bucks from last year's postseason with a seven-game victory in the first round. It's time for Milwaukee to return the favor in the second round of the 2019 NBA playoffs.

The Bucks enter the conference semifinals as the No.1 seed in the East and the betting favorites over the No.4 seed Celtics. Milwaukee was a significantly better team throughout the regular season, and there’s little evidence to suggest that's changed in the postseason.

The Celtics and the Bucks swept their respective first-round series. Boston was certainly impressive in four straight wins over the Indiana Pacers. A few of those games were close and Indiana is barely an average NBA team without the injured Victor Oladipo.

Milwaukee absolutely crushed the Detroit Pistons in each contest, never winning by fewer than 16 points. They looked like the same team that dominated the league for nearly seven months.

Giannis Antetokounmpo is probably on his way toward winning the 2019 NBA MVP award. The Pistons had no answers for The Greek Freak, and neither will the Celtics.

Antetokounmpo averaged 25.7 points, 9.6 rebounds and 6.3 assists per game while shooting 56.9 percent from the field in last year's series with Boston. What's he going to do this postseason when he's arguably the best basketball player on the planet and surrounded by a bunch of deadly shooters?

Milwaukee ranked fourth in the NBA and first in the East with 113.5 points per 100 possessions in the regular season. Khris Middleton killed Boston in last year's playoffs. Eric Bledsoe wasn't good against the Celtics, but he's looked like a different player this season with a career-high 48.4 shooting percentage. Brook Lopez adds a new dimension to the Bucks, stretching the floor as a center that shoots 37.5 percent from three-point range.

On the defensive end, the Bucks are even better. They rank first in the entire league with a 104.9 defensive rating. Milwaukee allowed just 96.8 points per 100 possessions to Detroit.

Boston, of course, is much better than Detroit. They’ve got a lot more talent than the roster that beat Milwaukee a year ago. During an up-and-down regular season, the Celtics still boasted a top-10 offense and a top-10 defense.

It was supposed to be Boston that would be the favorite in the East playoffs. The Celtics made two straight trips to the conference finals without either Kyrie Irving or Gordon Hayward in the postseason.

A frustrating regular season, however, has changed the expectations of many. The Bucks and Toronto Raptors have better odds than the Celtics of getting out of the East.

There will still be plenty of arguments made on behalf of Boston in this series.

The Celtics have the pedigree with two consecutive trips beyond the second round and tons of experience up and down the roster. The Bucks’ core had no playoff success before beating the Pistons. Role players like Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Terry Rozier have come up big deep in the playoffs. The same can’t be said for the likes of Middleton and Bledsoe, whom Milwaukee will be relying heavily upon.

Hayward is not back at an All-Star level, but he is starting to more closely resemble the player that earned a max contract a few years ago. Milwaukee still doesn't know what it's going to get out of Malcolm Brogdon, if anything at all. He’s still recovering from a foot injury and was so important to the Bucks before he got hurt.

Then there is Irving, who certainly isn't the all-around player that Antetokounmpo is, but is up there among the best closers in the game. Irving is terrific in crunch time, seemingly always finding a way to get a bucket late in games when his team needs one. The point guard is an NBA champion that's got a playoff resume filled with 40-point performances and can carry Boston when the chips are down.

Because the Bucks won so many games going away in the regular season, Antetokounmpo wasn’t really asked to score many important baskets late games. He'll be entering uncharted territory against Boston in terms of what he’ll be asked to do in high-pressure situations.

Will Antetokounmpo have to prove himself in some big moments? Sure, but not every game this series will come down to the final few possessions.

Milwaukee led the NBA by a wide margin with a plus-8.9 point differential in the regular season. That number increased exponentially last round. The Bucks are going to cruise to a few victories against the Celtics.

The Celtics are not the Golden State Warriors. They are not the Cleveland Cavaliers of recent seasons. It's not as if Boston finished with the No.4 seed because they slept walked through a bunch of meaningless regular-season games only to turn it on in the playoffs.

This Boston team has real issues. They were not solved in a four-game sweep of an Indiana roster that probably wouldn't be good enough to make the playoffs over the course of a full season.

Hayward is not among the best players in this series. Before scoring 20 points in the first round clincher, he totaled 29 points on 38.4 percent shooting in Games 1-3. Don’t be surprised if the forward puts up a few stinkers against the NBA's best defense.

Maybe Tatum will stay hot after scoring 19.3 points per game on 49.9 percent shooting from the field against the Pacers. It's probably more likely that he’ll be inconsistent the way he was in the regular season.

Boston's offense gets stagnant at times, relying on Irving to make plays by himself. He's good enough to carry the Celtics on some nights. Doing so against a unit with a few First-Team All-Defense candidates is another story.

By just about every measure, the Bucks are better than the Celtics. Milwaukee scores more points than Boston. Milwaukee gives up fewer points than Boston. They shoot a higher percentage from the field and allow a lower opponents’ field goal percentage.

The Bucks have home-court advantage. You can bet that's going to be a factor. Milwaukee went 33-8 at home in the regular season, and Boston was just a game over .500. The Celtics failed to reach last year's NBA Finals because they couldn't beat LeBron James and a bunch of misfits even once in Cleveland. Boston was 1-7 on the road in the 2018 playoffs, including 0-3 in Milwaukee.

Most importantly, Milwaukee has the best player in the series. Antetokounmpo has reached a new level of superstardom this season. He's ready to join LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry as one of the sport's transcendent players.

Antetokounmpo gave the NBA a taste of what he could do against the Pistons. In a series against a much better Celtics’ team, this might be his coming out party to casual fans that haven’t watched a ton of Bucks’ basketball.

In the regular season, Milwaukee took two out of three games from Boston. The Bucks won a nail-biter at home. The teams split their two contests in Boston as the Celtics won a close contest by four points and were beaten handily by 13 points in the other, though it should be noted that Al Horford didn't play in that loss.

That might be a preview of what's to come. Boston should win a couple of games at TD Garden, where Irving's big-shot ability and offensive ingenuity will be on full display. Then there will be the games in Milwaukee, where the Bucks’ suffocating defense, barrage of shooters and once-in-a-generation superstar will go undefeated.

Antetokounmpo averaged a cool 31.0/10.7/4.3 in just over 35 minutes per game against the Celtics this season. He should only improve on those numbers when he leads Milwaukee past Boston and puts the Bucks one step away from reaching the 2019 NBA finals.

Series Prediction: Milwaukee in six