Short on firepower
Giannis pours in 40, but Celtics pack more punch
BOSTON - In the NBA, it's hard to dig out of a 20-point hole. When you're playing the Boston Celtics, the team with the best record in the league, the odds are especially bad.
For the Milwaukee Bucks, that type of comeback proved to impossible Monday night in a 111-100 loss at TD Garden. The Bucks got within seven and had opportunities to shave the margin lower in the fourth quarter but never could. The defeat snapped Milwaukee's three-game winning streak while giving the Celtics three consecutive wins of their own.
“I thought we did a great job of just staying with it," Bucks wing Khris Middleton said. "We got down 20 — didn’t get off to a great start in that second half. We fought back, just didn’t close it out.”
Giannis Antetokounmpo led the Bucks with 40 points on 14 of 24 shooting while making 12 of 14 free throws.
His effort on Greek heritage night in Boston wasn't enough to make up for Milwaukee's overall deficiencies.
The Bucks, who seemed to have turned a corner defensively during their win streak, struggled to contain the Celtics from the onset. Their trapping defense and tendency to over-help returned, leading to numerous good looks for the Celtics early on, including four three-pointers from rookie Jayson Tatum in the first quarter.
“We were either over-rotating or not rotating enough," Bucks guard Malcolm Brogdon said. "The big would either get the shot or he would skip it when we over-rotated and the guard would get the shot on the opposite side.”
Facing the league's top defense, Milwaukee's best offense in the opening quarter was getting to the free-throw line, taking advantage of eight Boston fouls to go 12 of 12.
Boston opened the second quarter with all five starters on the bench, opening the door for Milwaukee to make a move. Instead, the Bucks slipped further behind, trailing by 13 by the time the Celtics brought a starter back on the court.
With the Celtics shooting 59.5% from the field with 15 assists on 22 baskets and featuring nine made threepointers on 17 attempts (52.9%), Celtics coach Brad Stevens called the first half one of the Celtics' best all season.
"The way we were moving it, the purpose, to get it out of the pick-and-roll quickly because of the way they were blitzing us and then skipping the ball and finding the right guys was good," Stevens said.
For the Bucks, turning things around in the second half didn't mean changing the defensive scheme. They had a game plan they thought would work, but in their minds, they just didn't follow it.
Middleton said as a whole, the Bucks had "been all over the place" the first half. Jason Terry noted that they "didn't execute our game plan whatsoever." Kidd mentioned that he didn't believe the defensive effort wasn't consistent with Milwaukee's past three games and that players were losing track of their discipline and principles.
“We walked through exactly what they were going to do, we just couldn’t get our legs moving fast enough there in that first half," Kidd said. "In the second half, we did a better job understanding what we talked about game plan-wise. They’re going to shoot a lot of threes. We did a better job in that second half; in the first half we were awful.”
The improved play wasn't immediate. The Celtics opened the third quarter with a 7-0 run to open up a 20-point lead.
With the deficit growing and the Bucks' centers providing little — John Henson and Thon Maker combined for 0 points on 0 of 10 shooting and 4 rebounds in 29 1/2 minutes — Kidd decided to change things up. He went with a centerless lineup for the rest of the game, featuring Antetokounmpo in the middle most of the time.
That choice — combined with keeping Antetokounmpo, Eric Bledsoe, Khris Middleton and Tony Snell on the court for the entire third quarter — cut the margin to just seven points heading into the fourth quarter.
But after all the battling to just make the game competitive again, the Bucks didn't have enough left to cut the deficit any lower.
Kyrie Irving led the Celtics with 32 points in the win while Middleton had 19 points and Bledsoe chipped in 18 in the loss.
“With the way the schedule has been, the guys fought," Kidd said. "It’s tough to win here, but they gave themselves ... an opportunity and we just couldn’t get over the hump.”
BEHIND THE BOX SCORE
Terry injured: Late in the fourth quarter, Terry came up lame, limping his way across the court after a defensive possession. After the Bucks' turn on offense, he committed a foul on Celtics forward Jaylen Brown solely as a means to stop the clock and get himself off the court.
Terry went to the locker room and did not return due to what was termed a left calf strain. Following the game, he said he wasn't sure of the extent of his injury going forward, but would get checked out in Milwaukee on Tuesday.
UP NEXT
Teams: Milwaukee Bucks (12-10) vs. Detroit Pistons (14-9).
When: 7 p.m. Wednesday.
Where: BMO Harris Bradley Center. About the Pistons: The teams will be meeting for the third time this season, with each having won at home. Detroit started a four-game road trip with losses at Washington and Philadelphia and then fell again Monday night in San Antonio. Heading into Monday, Tobias Harris led the Pistons with 19.3 points per game while Andre Drummond was averaging 14.3 points and an NBA-leading 15.0 rebounds per game.