Jrue Holiday was the second star on a championship-winning Milwaukee Bucks team. Now, he’s the world’s most luxurious luxury on the Celtics team that just kicked the Bucks back down the pit of the Eastern Conference as they tried hopelessly to climb out.
Even better, though, was how Holiday did the kicking down the stretch, proving that making winning plays, over and over, is what matters most when games turn ugly. He didn’t just tell Milwaukee they were wrong for getting rid of him; he squared up and showed them.
The 2-8 Bucks must have seen Holiday like how a burnt-out divorcee sees their ex on a honeymoon in Aruba on Instagram. Just brutal to look at, full of regret, jealousy and the unshakable feeling that they are maybe better off without you. He helped them win a ring once, sure, but what have they got to show for it since then? One first-round series win. But the Celtics liked Holiday, and they rightfully put another ring on him to show the Bucks how wrong they really were.
Now, Holiday has become the Celtics’ closer, bringing out an 102 mile-per-hour fastball to eviscerate whatever gas the opposition has left in the bottom of the ninth. In the waning moments of Sunday’s win, Holiday switched on baller mode and made back-to-back game-winning plays, stripping Damian Lillard — the player he was traded for — before nabbing a clutch offensive rebound and throwing the ball off Taurean Prince as he was falling out of bounds.
The first play was a simple winning effort driven by a subconscious desire to prove the Bucks wrong. These clamps were a statement that Damian Lillard’s world-beating offense was not more valuable than Holiday’s actual-NBA-player-beating defense, and that Milwaukee was wrong to think their problem was him.
Lillard is one of this decade’s most impactful offensive players. The Bucks thought in trading for him that they would provide Giannis Antetokounmpo with a second artillery battery with which to pummel opponents. They thought they could dictate terms to the league with a simple mathematical advantage, but then this game got chippy. It got mean, with flagrant and technical fouls flying. And when things get messy, you don’t want a pure scorer like Lillard. You want Holiday on the other end.
He maintains a unique basketball philosophy: when an offensive and defensive player square up with the game on the line, either guy can take control. Look at how he positions his feet with little micro-jumps to give his opponent exactly as much room as he means to, even intentionally surrendering area to offer Lillard a false sense of space. But he knows where his help is, and he won’t let Lillard get a shot off. He is the one dictating terms this time.
It reminded me of another play, one of slightly more historical note. Holiday’s philosophy of control popped up when the lights were brightest back in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals, when he dominantly recovered in a heroic, game-saving stop.
This stuff isn’t just defensive hero ball — it’s just what Holiday does. There is no one else you want guarding the point of attack in a pressure cooker, because he’s the only one who can feel in control in that environment — when it feels like someone else holds all the cards. He’s like a brain surgeon or an NFL cornerback: able to stare a terrifying and hopeless situation in the eye and say, “I got this.”
Then, as the Celtics came down the floor, came the moneymaker: throwing the ball off of Taurean Prince to save the possession.
Let me make this abundantly clear in case there were still some doubters out there: throwing a ball off of an opponent while you’re falling out of bounds is the coolest play in basketball. It is the single biggest shift of momentum; the most emphatic rejection of someone thinking they have you in a box, but they don’t. It’s a statement of individuality, that you can’t be contained by a simple close-out. “Call an ambulance…but not for me!”
It’s also what separates a “scrappy” player from a “winning” one. While a scrappy player might dive into the third row with reckless abandon to save a loose ball, a winning player like Holiday always knows exactly where he and everyone else are on the court. When he feels his center of gravity falling out of bounds, he knows exactly where and how hard to whip the ball to ensure his team keeps possession. It’s controlled chaos, and it absolutely rules.
For this Celtics team, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown are the core. Kristaps Porzingis is the superpower, Derrick White is the fixer, and Payton Pritchard and Al Horford are the embarrassment of riches. But Holiday is the surgeon. The wall against which their opponents break. The last line of defense in every totally screwed situation. In short, he’s the man, and I cannot believe the Bucks let him out of their building.
