Coming off an overtime win against the Brooklyn Nets, the Boston Celtics go on the road to face a Milwaukee Bucks team who has been disappointing to start the season. The Bucks might be struggling with a 2-7 record but they should not be taken lightly. The Celtics got blown out twice in Milwaukee last season so it would be really nice to get a win on the road.
Jaylen Brown is making his return for the Celtics today after missing the last four games with a left hip flexor strain and is joining the starting lineup alongside Holiday, White, Tatum and Horford. The Bucks are without Khris Middleton and Gary Trent Jr today and are starting Damian Lillard, Andre Jackson, Taurean Prince, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Brook Lopez.
1st Quarter
The game started with Giannis cutting to the rim and making two free throws to score the first points for Milwaukee. Jrue Holiday scored the first points for the Celtics, driving to the rim and finishing over Giannis for a layup. The Celtics started out slow again and the Bucks took advantage of it, going on a 16-2 run to begin the game, almost mirroring the start the Nets had against Boston on Friday.
Jaylen Brown hit his first three since coming back from injury but the Bucks continued their hot shooting, highlighted by Giannis starting the game with 13 points on 5-7 shooting including a three and a mid range jumper. The Celtics rim protection did not look great as it felt like every time the Bucks had the ball, they had a free run to the rim or would draw a foul.
Giannis Antetokounmpo called out Milwaukee after their recent loss to the Knicks on Friday, highlighting their lack of effort, and it seems the Bucks responded to it well as against the Celtics, they started shooting 14-22 (63.6%) from the field and 5-9 (55.6%) from three. Boston’s trend of slow starts continued as they finished the first quarter down 40-30. Giannis had 19 points on 8-10 shooting, leading the Bucks and Tatum led the Celtics with 6 points.
2nd Quarter
Jaylen Brown and Giannis had a little bit of a back and forth early into the 2nd quarter after Giannis elbowed Brown in the head committing an offensive foul. Giannis would attack Brown again after a Celtics miss and this time score, letting Brown hear it as the Celtics called a timeout.
Payton Pritchard started to get hot halfway through the quarter, hitting a three from the parking lot to end a 13-4 Bucks run, and hitting back to back threes to keep the Celtics in the game.
Make it 9 games this season with at least 3 three-pointers for Payton Pritchard.
He has a team-high 14 points on 4-of-5 shooting from deep https://t.co/dNNVPH2gAy
— Justin Turpin (@JustinmTurpin) November 10, 2024
Pritchard was trying his best to carry the Celtics offense, but nobody else on Boston was there to help him, especially defensively. Milwaukee kept getting whatever they wanted on the offensive end and the Celtics were not able to punish the Bucks poor defense. The Celtics offense started to click towards the end of the first half but a last second layup by Giannis gave the Bucks an 11 point lead of 69-58.
The biggest problem for the Celtics through the first half was their overall lack of energy on the defensive end. It was really hard for Boston to string multiple stops in a row and that’s why no matter how good they were on the offensive end, the Bucks were able to answer every time. The Celtics finished the first half shooting 19-46 (41.3%) from the field and 11-29 (11-29) from three, not great but not the worst either. Pritchard’s 17 point explosion led the Celtics in scoring but it was a rough half for Jayson Tatum, scoring only 8 points on 2-7 shooting. Giannis continued his hot start finishing with 27 points in the first half, leading Milwaukee.
3rd Quarter
The Celtics came out of the half aggressive, going on a 12-0 run. Tatum backed down Lillard leading to a layup, got an easy dunk in transition off a Milwaukee missed shot, and finally Brown made a layup to cut the Bucks lead to 5. Holiday continued the hot start with a three and Al Horford hit a corner three to give the Celtics their first lead of the game with 9:22 left in the 3rd quarter.
There was a scary moment at the 7:09 mark where Jayson Tatum shot a corner three and Giannis slid his foot underneath him as he was coming down. Tatum went down holding his ankle and the worst part was the refs didn’t even call it a foul. I can’t believe the refs missed this call because this is the definition of what a closeout foul looks like. Tatum would get his ankle worked on in a timeout and came back into the game.
Both teams would go back and forth trading baskets as all of a sudden this game had a playoff feel to it. Both teams went on a long scoring drought as both defenses started to tighten up and baskets that were scored had an immediate response. Tatum got fouled on a three point attempt again as Bobby Portis went underneath him this time, but it was called and Tatum made his free throws, giving the Celtics an 87-84 lead going into the 4th quarter.
After being down 11 at the half, Boston outscored Milwaukee by 14 in the 3rd quarter led by Jayson Tatum who had 11 points in the quarter alone. Tatum leads the Celtics overall with 19 points and Giannis leads the Bucks with 30 points.
4th Quarter
The Celtics were really making an effort to build a wall with Horford and Queta when it came to defending Giannis. Horford was asserting his dominance inside as he made an and-1 layup on Andre Jackson. Giannis made an incredible block on Jaylen Brown but Neemias Queta was under the rim to clean up the miss and dunk it. Then Massachusetts native Pat Connaughton hit a three to cut the Celtics lead to 1 with 9:40 to go. Connaughton then gave the Bucks the lead with free throws and Giannis made a layup to make it a 3 point game.
After two delay of game penalties by Milwaukee and a Queta dunk the Celtics tied the game at 95 with 6:52 left. The refs called a flagrant foul on Brown when Giannis was attacking the rim leading to free throws for Antetokounmpo. Kind of ironic they wanted to review a flagrant foul when it involved Giannis but whatever. Brown and Tatum were aggressive attacking Lillard on defense, leading to more free throws and Tatum hit a huge three with 4:59 left to put the Celtics up 4.
After a Portis layup and Celtics timeout, Derrick White hit a huge three after Tatum baited a double team to make it a 5 point Boston lead with 3:37 left. The Celtics forced Milwaukee into a shot clock violation, but couldn’t capitalize as AJ Green hit a three for the Bucks to cut it to a two point game. Jayson Tatum hit another huge three but Giannis was able to make an and-1 layup, but missed the free throw. Green put the Celtics in the bonus after he fouled Holiday and Jrue hit both free throws with 1:35 remaining.
Holiday continued to make big plays as he stole the ball from Lillard then off of a missed shot, hustled for the rebound and threw it off of Prince to make it Celtics ball. Tatum would miss a midrange shot leading to a Bucks timeout and missed corner three Prince. Milwaukee fouled Tatum, made two free throws, Giannis made a layup, and Tatum hit two more free throws to give him 31 points, the 7th time Tatum has had 30 points this season.
With 16.8 seconds to go, Giannis was fouled, made 1-2, and that was the ballgame as the Celtics comeback to win it 113-107. Jayson Tatum finished with 31 points, 12 rebounds, and 6 assists as he really took over in the second half and improved the Celtics record to 9-2. Giannis Antetokounmpo finished with 43 points and 15 rebounds despite the loss, but the Bucks fall to 2-8 on the season.
The next game for the Celtics is Tuesday November 12th against the Atlanta Hawks in the first game of the NBA Cup.
