Celtics 119, Bucks 116: Milwaukee's furious fourth quarter rally falls short in final seconds
BOSTON –The Milwaukee Bucks and Boston Celtics met for the first time this season and Wednesday’s night game at TD Garden in an early battle for the top spot in the Eastern Conference, and the Celtics held off a furious rally to win 119-116 in the closing seconds.
A Damian Lillard three-pointer with 43 seconds left made it 114-111 Boston, but Jayson Tatum knocked down a free throw with 21 ticks left to give the Celtics a two-possession lead. After a foul, Lillard missed a dunk attempt with Derek White contesting from behind and Tatum sealed it with two more free throws with 11 seconds left.
The loss ended a five game winning streak for the Bucks, who are now 10-5. The Celtics remain atop the conference at 12-3.
Brook Lopez scored a season-high 28 points on 12 of 18 shooting for Milwaukee, and the big man was a huge force in the team nearly coming all the way back from a 20-point fourth quarter deficit.
"I was just trying to help my team, that's all it ever is," Lopez said of his offensive output. "I'm just out there trying to help my team win, doing what I can to help the team win."
Lillard finished with 27, but was 3 for 10 from behind the three-point line. Giannis Antetokounmpo (21 points, 13 rebounds) and Khris Middleton (12) also scored in double figures. Tatum had 23 points.
“We can compete with the best of ‘em, we just have to play our best basketball,” Middleton said of what the Bucks could take away from the game. “Get off to better starts, which we haven’t done all year yet. You see against any team if you start slow it’s hard to play catch up the whole game. But, throughout the game I thought we played through a lot of rough stretches where we were still there. Our defense helped in the game and eventually our offense caught up to us. I like the way we competed all night even though we could’ve gave up. We didn’t, with how ugly it got at the start, a great crowd, hard place to play, hard place to win, but our guys stayed with it the whole night.”
First half shooting does in Bucks
There is a cliché that the NBA is a “make or miss league” – and while that is also an oversimplification it bore out in the first half in a bad way for Milwaukee. The Bucks missed their first seven shots as the Celtics took a 10-0 lead and the Celtics ended up shooting a higher percentage from behind the three-point line (12 for 23, 52.2%) than the Bucks did from the paint (13 for 27, 48.1%).
"You know that they're an elite three-point shooting team and whatever you do, when you play the Celtics or a team like that, you gotta multiply it by two – you gotta close out harder, you gotta run back harder, you gotta jump higher, you gotta be more physical and I thought we did that in the second half," Bucks head coach Adrian Griffin said. "It was the tale of two games there. The first half you have to execute at a high level and we missed a lot of shots around the rim that we normally make. But you gotta play through those, you gotta keep playing and I thought we did in the second half. I thought it was Bucks basketball in the second half."
In the first half, Middleton was 0 for 6 and missed five shots from 12 feet or closer. Antetokounmpo was 4 for 13, and six of his misses were from 10 feet or closer. Lillard was 3 for 11 and three of his misfires were from 11 feet and in.
“I thought we had a lot of great looks – unfortunately they did not go down tonight,” Middleton said. “This is a night where you want those to go down. But it didn’t happen. I thought we still played well enough through stretches that kept us in the game, kept us fighting.”
Overall in the half, the Bucks trio combined for 19 points on 7-of-30 shooting (23.3%), including 1 for 8 from behind the three-point line. On the other side of it, Boston’s trio of Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Kristaps Porziņģis combined for 36 points on 14-of-23 shooting (61%). They also were 4 for 10 from behind the three-point line.
"We didn't come out ready, simple as that," Antetokounmpo said. "They came out ready to play. They made a couple shots. We kind of eased into the game and when you play a good team you cannot do that."
While the game was 48 minutes long, that opening stretch of Milwaukee misses and Boston makes were the difference as the Bucks outscored them from there.
“Yeah, I think we missed nine layups in the first half,” Malik Beasley said. “Coach harped on that. Some nights it goes like that. But I think the good point is we fought. It was a three-point game at the end of the game and it shows that we can compete. They’ve been a team that’s been together for a couple years. With us, we’re kind of still jelling together and I feel like we did a great job of keeping our composure.”
Lillard didn’t feel like there was good pace, screening or ball movement on the offensive end in the first half, which only helped create some issues on the defensive end with a Celtics team that moves the ball well. To Middleton, that resulted in the Bucks chasing too much, whereas in the second half they were more attached to their man defensively.
“I think we just stepped up our aggressiveness,” Lillard said of the fourth quarter charge. “At halftime we came in the locker room and said we gotta step to ‘em. Everything they did was a little too comfortable on both ends of the floor. We weren’t disrupting them enough defensively and we weren’t making them get into rotations and guard hard enough offensively. You see what happened when we started doing that. We gave ourselves a chance. We were right there. I think it’s that story of you know, you gotta put four quarters together, especially with a really good team.”
Bucks face Jrue Holiday for first time since trade
Before the game, Jrue Holiday’s former teammates in Milwaukee – especially those that won a title with him in 2021 – looked forward to seeing him. They acknowledged it would be strange to see him on the opposite side of the court, but before the game Holiday made a quick visit to a familiar place – the visiting locker room at TD Garden – to say hello to many of his former teammates.
It’s not a common practice in most sports, but if any individual could do it, it was Holiday. Hugs and greetings were exchanged, as many of his former Bucks teammates didn’t have the chance to see him after the Sept. 27 trade that initially sent him to Portland. Boston acquired him in a separate deal on Oct. 1.
"I was thrilled to see him," said Lopez, who also was the one to snag Holiday's game jersey. "It's always great to see Jrue-san. I definitely miss him. A great person, such a good friend of mine. Good to see his family as well postgame. I just wish him all the best. It was fun to compete against him tonight."
The warm greetings continued through warmups on the court, but then it was time for basketball.
Holiday picked up Giannis Antetokounmpo on the defensive end, and Brook Lopez rocked Holiday with two strong screens – the second of which sent the guard sprawling to the floor and flexing his left shoulder.
Holiday would end up guarding Damian Lillard and Khris Middleton at times, also.
“I haven’t seen that in a long time, but you know, that’s what he does, he’s all over the place guarding different matchups, matchups you didn’t think he would guard or should guard,” Middleton said. “But that’s how talented that guy is.”
On the other end, he was guarded by Antetokounmpo at times and was held to five points on 1-for-8 shooting.
He made his first and only shot early in the fourth quarter, an open three-pointer that put the Celtics up 99-79 and effectively clinch the game, as they needed all of that advantage to hold off a late Bucks charge. He added two free throws late, also.
Jaylen Brown sets tone for Celtics
The first play of the game was a definitive one, as Brown drove past Antetokounmpo baseline and threw down a thunderous dunk. Brown would add a windmill slam later in the game after beating MarJon Beauchamp, along with knocking down jumpers whenever it seemed the Celtics needed one.
With Tatum playing through an illness and Porziņģis having a hard time with Antetokounmpo and Lopez in the middle, Brown rose to the occasion for Boston. The all-NBA guard scored 26 points on 10-of-16 shooting and also handed out eight assists.
Did you notice?
After Antetokounmpo missed three-pointer and turned the ball over in the middle of the third quarter, Bucks head coach Adrian Griffin subbed Bobby Portis in for the star. Antetokounmpo did not go to the bench, but rather stayed at the scorer’s table and had a conversation with Griffin. Antetokounmpo subbed back in for Lopez 40 seconds later.
"He wanted to stay in, I wanted to give him a breather, that's all it was," Griffin said after the game. "Then I told him to stay at the table for one possession and he got right back out there."
When asked for his view on what happened, Antetokounmpo declined comment.
Five numbers
1 Blocks by Bucks center Lopez. He came into Wednesday’s game leading the league in contested shots (205) and No. 2 in blocks (42).
4-4 Bucks road record. They began the season 1-3 away from Fiserv Forum.
29 Minutes for Middleton, a season-high. Unfortunately for the Bucks, he was just 4 for 14 from the floor for 12 points. He added 7 assists and 5 rebounds.
Middleton: Felt great. I wanted to finish the game, felt we had a great chance to win and we did. Just overall I feel great. Each night I feel like I’m taking a step in the right direction.
47 Rebounds for the Bucks, including 13 on the offensive end that resulted in 19 second-chance points. The Celtics came into the league as the No. 1 defensive rebounding team in the league. The Bucks had a 10-point advantage in second-chance points for the game.
116-109 Score, in favor of the Bucks, after the Celtics started the game on a 10-0 run.
Lopez: There were things in the first half we obviously could've done better right from the get go, so we focused on fixing those things. But there were a lot of things we were doing right that we knew we just had to keep doing, just keep being us.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Celtics 119, Bucks 116: Milwaukee's furious rally falls short
