Celtics feel confident to take on Bucks

BOSTON » The Celtics’ sweep of the Brooklyn Nets in the first round of the playoffs underscored one thing about Boston’s late-season rise to the top tier of the NBA’s Eastern Conference: it was no fluke.

Leaning on the defensive brand cultivated under rookie coach Ime Udoka and punctuated by big scoring games by AllStar Jayson Tatum, Boston stymied a Brooklyn team that looked to be gaining late-season momentum led by Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving.

The only team to register a four-game sweep in the opening round, the Celtics are a conference-best 37-10 since their buzzer-beating loss to the Knicks on Jan. 6. They enter their second-round matchup with the defending champion Milwaukee Bucks playing their best basketball of the season.

Udoka said their performance against a highquality Nets team that wasn’t a typical No. 7 seed bodes well for them going forward.

“We understood this is the playoffs and we’re gonna have to play really good teams,” he said. “The only thing we talk about is we’re a basketball team, not a track team. We’re not running from people.”

That includes embracing the challenge of trying to slow reigning NBA Finals MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks. The teams haven’t met in a postseason series since 2019, which Milwaukee won 4-1 in what proved to be Irving’s final games in a Boston jersey.

They split their four regular-season meetings this season, though they never met each other at full strength or with the Celtics’ post-trade deadline starting lineup of Robert Williams, Al Horford, Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart on the floor. That group is 27-7 together this season but hasn’t faced Antetokounmpo with the kind of reliable outside shooters he now has around him.