MILWAUKEE — Just before the second half got underway on Thursday night at the Fiserv Forum, the Boston Celtics broke their huddle and Payton Pritchard and Sam Hauser along with the rest of the bench strode out onto the floor. Such was the nature of the Milwaukee Bucks’ performance in the first half that Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla waved the proverbial white flag early.
“I’ve never seen it,” Damian Lillard said. “But it’s a long game, so we still gotta do what we gotta do. This game was about us to begin with. Even when they didn’t send their guys out to start the third, our message was: This is about us. We gotta continue to build good habits.”
That memo was still ringing around the Bucks’ locker room well after their thorough 135-102 walloping over the league-leading Celtics. Yes, the result was great, but Milwaukee’s effort, physicality and attention to detail right from the opening tip were far more important.
This team is still trying to find itself, and the search had been turning up more questions than answers since the turn of the calendar. Not only were they 1-4, but they had been embarrassed at multiple turns, to the point that Giannis Antetokounmpo was wondering if they had any pride. After Thursday’s showing, it’s clear they do.
“I love the way we responded,” head coach Adrian Griffin said. “We responded like champions today.”
The Bucks came flying out of the gates and never trailed on the night. After a 3-pointer from Bobby Portis, who finished with a team-high 28 points and 12 rebounds, pushed their advantage to 11 with 1:50 left in the first quarter, they led by double digits the rest of the way. At one point in the third quarter, they were up by as much as 43.
“Obviously we had this game marked on our calendars for a while,” Malik Beasley said. “I think the timing of it was even better because of the recent games that we had. As a top contending team, we had to prove a point tonight.”
Milwaukee was the better team across the board and thoroughly deserved the victory. At the same time, the Celtics were playing their fifth game in seven days and were on the second night of a back-to-back. They contended with horrible shooting luck and packed it in early to get their stars some rest, all of which contributed to the uncompetitive nature of the contest as a whole.
Some nights, the deck is going to be stacked one way or the other. That doesn’t take away from the Bucks’ performance, but it does emphasize why they were so proud of how they went about their business.
“When we do our jobs and we communicate and we take pride in doing our jobs, we’ve shown in stretches what we’re capable of,” Lillard explained. “Tonight, against the best team in the league, we did it and it didn’t take anything special. We played with good pace offensively, we got into the ball, we communicated, we rebounded. We just checked all the boxes.”
The Bucks know every game isn’t going to be this easy, nor are they going to win every night. But for a championship-level team, there should be a baseline expectation that everyone is on the same page and you show up each night ready to compete on both ends of the floor. For one reason or another, that hasn’t always been the case this season, especially in recent weeks.
Perhaps it shouldn’t take getting booed at home against the Jazz, or, in the words of Antetokounmpo, a “respect slash fear factor” from playing the best team in the league for everyone to show more urgency. Whatever the motivation, the Bucks reminded themselves, as well as the rest of the league, just how good they can be.
Their work on defense was the most encouraging aspect. They’ve been a disaster on that side of the ball at times this season, but, on Thursday, they held one of the league’s best offenses to 32% shooting in the first half, including 1-of-16 from the 3-point line.
Their physicality – “we hit first instead of getting hit,” Beasley said – was a major factor.
“When a team has to work for everything offensively, those shots aren’t as comfortable,” Lillard said. “Even if it’s a shot that they normally shoot, if they’re getting bumped and chased off the line and ridden over screens and they gotta work for it, they’re a little more tired and a little more uncomfortable taking those shots.”
The challenge for the Bucks now is to ensure this wasn’t a one-off statement. Can they play like this, even when their backs aren’t against the wall?
“I feel like the team after this win, I feel like the team came together,” Antetokounmpo said. “I feel like our chemistry is better now. I feel like we needed this. I think we believe in one another now. Hopefully, it can carry over.”