Atlanta Hawks’ Paul Millsap has had his way against the Boston Celtics this season, continuing his dominance as he embarrasses Kelly Olynyk in the low post.
Paul Millsap has had his best season as a professional at 31 years old in 2015-16. He made his third straight trip to the NBA All-Star back in February and will probably end up making both his first All-Defensive and All-NBA team this season.
Millsap’s all-around game makes him one of the most complete power forwards in the game today. In 2015-16, the one team he has had the most success against in the Boston Celtics. Unfortunately for Boston, they are playing the Hawks in the first round of the Eastern Conference Playoffs in the No. 4/No. 5 matchup.
Millsap does phenomenal work in the low post and absolutely embarrasses Celtics big man Kelly Olynyk for an and-one in the third quarter of Game 1 at Philips Arena Saturday night.
Millsap with a serious jab-step, drive + reverse finish thru contact for @ATLHawks on ESPN! #NBAVine https://t.co/bp8VCBSqNu
— NBA (@NBA) April 17, 2016
It wasn’t quite the Dream Shake, but Millsap used his pivot foot and pump faked to his right to catch Olynyk off balance. Millsap is a strong ball handler for a traditional power forward and puts together two hard dribbles before pulling off the and-one reverse. Millsap would then sink the impending free throw for a three-point play the old-fashioned way.
2015-16 has been very kind to Millsap, as he has emerged in the second half as absolutely one of the better players at his position in the NBA. As Atlanta continues on its quest towards a dark horse trip to the NBA Finals, the world will slowly learn how great of a player Millsap has been this year for Mike Budenholzer’s Atlanta Hawks. That good news for Atlanta and bad news for Boston.
For more posts on the 2016 NBA Playoffs, please check out our NBA Playoffs hub page.