BOSTON — Al Horford’s final shot didn’t matter. He almost seemed sheepish to put up the layup attempt with one second left Friday night. But, after Derrick White stole a pass intended for Khris Middleton and circled out to dribble out most of the remaining clock, Horford found himself wide open underneath the basket. Following a pass from White, Horford pivoted slowly before finishing the easiest shot of the night.
Horford surely didn’t mind, but the ending didn’t suit the rest of the game. The Boston Celtics’ 111-105 win against the Milwaukee Bucks teemed with physicality. It overflowed with nastiness. It very rarely involved easy buckets. As simple as the Celtics can make the game look by pouring in 3-pointer after 3-pointer, they showed once again they can win grimy fights, too. To prevail on a cold shooting night against Milwaukee, a team they have plenty of history with, only seemed to invigorate the Boston players more.
“Yeah, I mean, I would say I have about a few teams that I played frequently in the playoffs,” Jayson Tatum said. “It’s just always a little something, something there as a competitor because you knocked them out in the playoffs, they knocked us out. We both won a championship in the last couple of years. Two prideful teams, and you just always know it’s gonna be a battle. And it’s gonna be fun. And it’s gonna be really competitive.”
The Celtics shot 32.1 percent on 3-point attempts in their fifth-worst outside shooting performance of the season. They went 0-for-12 from behind the arc in the second quarter and 2-for-7 over the final nine minutes of the fourth. They needed to scrape their way through a Bucks team that always seems to compete at a high level against them.
The Celtics did what the game required. They stuck with their game plan when they missed everything in the second quarter. They delivered consistent stops throughout the fourth. Tatum carried the offense early in the final period, Horford delivered a backbreaking 3-pointer with 1:29 left, and Jrue Holiday’s floater with 26 seconds remaining toppled his former team. Even after fouling Middleton on a 3-pointer on the ensuing Milwaukee possession, allowing the wing to cut the margin to 2 points, the Celtics never allowed the Bucks another chance to tie or take the lead.
Jrue Holiday had 20 points against the Bucks, including four 3s. (Bob DeChiara / Imagn Images)
Another Holiday play in crunch time was more symbolic of Boston’s effort. With a little more than a minute left, he fought for a rebound against Giannis Antetokounmpo but couldn’t stop the former MVP from grabbing the board. While Antetokounmpo jumped to attempt a putback, Holiday wrapped up his former teammate and tossed him to the ground.
“Appreciate them pushing us (by competing),” Holiday said. “I think that’s what makes the game fun. I think that’s kind of what battle-tests us for the future. Obviously, I’d rather Giannis go to the free-throw line, and he’s pretty strong, so I don’t want him to get the shot up. But I think for the most part, just being a competitor, just knowing that each game or even a game like this, we want to win the game. No matter what it takes. Especially being at home in Boston.”
Coach Joe Mazzulla appreciated another chippy moment earlier in the second half. About a minute into the third quarter, Jaylen Brown unleashed a too-small gesture after powering through Antetokounmpo for a lefty layup. In the aftermath of the play, Brown appeared to take offense to some contact from Antetokounmpo’s elbow. Brown then picked up a technical foul for pointing his finger at the Bucks star and bumping him.
“I thought that was great,” Mazzulla said. “I thought the elbow to the face (from Antetokounmpo) kind of unlocked Jaylen a little bit. I thought the technical was tremendous by Jaylen, and I thought from there on in, it just brought out an edge in us, and we were able to feed off that. So just thankful for all those things that kind of brought the edge out of us.”
The exchange between Brown and Antetokounmpo was not their first of the season. During a Nov. 10 Celtics win at Milwaukee, Antetokounmpo earned an offensive foul call with an elbow to Brown’s face, then, like an uncle playing a game with his niece or nephew, pretended to slap Brown five before pulling his hand back at the last moment. Brown called Antetokounmpo a child after the game.
The Celtics and Bucks, who have met three times in the postseason since 2018, bring the intensity out of each other. The recent history between them goes beyond the playoff matchups. Holiday landed in Boston after Milwaukee dealt him for Damian Lillard. Horford always seems to savor the Antetokounmpo assignment. Nobody can stop the eight-time All-Star, but the Celtics often limit his efficiency as well as any other opponent. Antetokounmpo still damaged them Friday with 30 points and 11 rebounds but should have holstered his only 3-point attempt. Never a good outside shooter, he has widely removed the tactic from his game, but he pulled up for his 15th 3-point attempt of the season with less than two minutes left. The Celtics punished his miss by finding Horford for a transition 3-pointer at the other end of the court. His bucket, which extended their lead to 105-101, forced a Milwaukee timeout. Horford celebrated by chest-bumping Tatum.
“Man, I mean, he’s the OG,” Holiday said of Horford. “He’s been doing it the longest. He’s the guy who holds us together. I think being able to play next to him and see his intensity and him getting riled up during the game, it brings everybody else along. When Al speaks or you see him get emotional like that, it must be serious. But love to be out there with him.”
Most teams don’t thrive on their worst shooting nights. The Celtics moved to 6-0 when shooting worse than 33.3 percent on 3-point attempts. White scored just 6 points on 1-for-10 shooting and missed all eight of his long-distance tries. Payton Pritchard, who had scored at least 19 points in each of his previous five games, went scoreless for the first time all season on just three shot attempts. Even Tatum, who finished with 34 points on 12-for-20 shooting, missed all six of his 3-point attempts in the second quarter.
Tatum fixed that during a perfect fourth. Over the final 12 minutes, he contributed 14 points, four rebounds and three assists while consistently making the right play for his team. He enjoyed the crowd buzzing with big-game energy. Though the Bucks entered Friday just one game above .500, they have enough star power on their roster and history with the Celtics to command the fans’ respect. Adding to the excitement, Milwaukee welcomed back Middleton in his season debut. The three-time All-Star missed the first 21 games of the season after undergoing double ankle surgery.
“It wasn’t a playoff game, but it was a special night,” Tatum said. “I’ve been here — this is my eighth year, and these nights where you’re playing a team that’s really good with some special players, and the crowd is really involved, and guys are making plays and feeding off the energy of your teammates and of the crowd and the fans, the amount of times that we’ve won games in moments like that, it’s just another special night at TD Garden that I’ve been a part of.”
The Celtics weren’t always able to shrug off bad shooting performances. During Mazzulla’s first season, he believed they didn’t have enough ways to survive their coldest nights. The numbers supported his claim. Boston, which went 57-25 that season, lost 14 of 24 games when shooting worse than 33.3 percent on 3-point tries. The Celtics needed to learn ways to win such games.
Others might consider those games ugly. The Celtics think they’re beautiful.
“Usually, when you go through lulls offensively, at some point your defense cracks,” Mazzulla said. “And I thought (against the Bucks) it didn’t, mainly because I thought we got great shots almost the entire game. We made the right read when we got to our spacing, moved the ball. Anytime you see the numbers from Jrue and from Al and from those guys, it just shows that we’re breaking down the layers of their defense. So I thought our defense kept us in it, and I thought we continued to fight for great looks throughout tonight.”
The Celtics liked that the referees allowed more contact than usual. They embraced the additional physicality on a night the 3-pointers didn’t flow like they usually do.
“We’ve been through times where our shot maybe isn’t falling the way we wanted to, knowing that we got a lot of good shots and they just weren’t falling,” Holiday said. “But I think we rely on our defense a lot, being able to go onto the court and know that our defense can save us at any time or keep it close. Having guys over there like what they have, we got to lock in defensively because they could kind of take off at any point. So think our defense held it down for us today.”
(Top photo of Al Horford defending Khris Middleton: Bob DeChiara / Imagn Images)
