Just a few nights ago, Al Horford of the Boston Celtics was the talk of the NBA world.
The 35-year-old center had an explosive Game 4 against the Milwaukee Bucks, putting up 30 points and helping his team achieve a monster win.
That all changed on Wednesday night, as Giannis Antetokounmpo and his team found a way to shut Horford down.
Let’s check in on how the head to head matchup went tonight.
Giannis: 40 points
Horford: 8 points https://t.co/htIb6thxCa— Justin Wills (@itsjwills) May 12, 2022
Horford only scored 8 points to Antetokounmpo’s 40 in Wednesday night’s Game 5 in Boston.
That’s quite a chance for the big man – and a shocking sign that the Bucks may have figured out how to work around him.
Harnessing Horford
Horford’s 8 are very low – far lower than his average of 15 points per game.
While he wasn’t regularly scoring anything close to 30 points, he also wasn’t falling as low as 8 points often.
There is only one other game in these playoffs that saw him do worse: he put only 3 against the Nets in Game 3 of the first round.
The Celtics really need Horford right now because they are currently lacking their starting center, Robert Williams III.
Boston is now relying on Horford a lot more because of Williams’ absence.
And the change seemed to be paying off in Game 4, when Horford was all over the floor and was blowing the Bucks away.
But now he’s come back down to Earth and the Celtics will need to figure out how to move forward.
Horford’s weak night wasn’t just because of himself.
This was the hard work of the Bucks and their desire to limit his output.
They saw how much pain he caused them in Game 4 and they did what they needed to outsmart and outplay him.
Now the question is: will Horford bounce back?
NEXT: Celtics Fan Had A Hilarious Tacko Fall Problem