After scoring the first five points of the third quarter, the Celtics then saw the Bucks go on a 27-8 run over the final nine minutes of the period.
After scoring the first five points of the third quarter, the Celtics then saw the Bucks go on a 27-8 run over the final nine minutes of the period.
The Celtics couldn’t make anything in the second half, and the Giannis Antetokounmpo-less Bucks couldn’t miss as the Celtics’ five-game win streak ended in a 116-101 defeat.
Here are the takeaways. Bobby Portis and Kyle Kuzma went off
Quite honestly, we did not expect to lead with Bobby Portis and Kyle Kuzma here, but the NBA’s regular season isn’t known for its predictability.
Kuzma — and again, we can’t stress enough how little we expected to write this sentence — put together a dominant performance, scoring 31 points on 13-for-17 shooting. Neemias Queta was his primary victim, struggling enormously to stay with Kuzma in the pick-and-roll, but the Celtics also couldn’t do much about him with their small-ball lineups or in transition.
Portis, meanwhile, scored the bulk of his offense either in the post or behind the 3-point line, and — as we will get to shortly — he can probably be credited as the emotional catalyst that lifted the Bucks to the win.
To win games with Antetokounmpo sidelined due to a calf injury, the Bucks are going to need some weird contributions, and the Celtics now get to leave Milwaukee with the sore taste of having been blown out by Kuzma and Portis.Things got heated in the third quarter
The Celtics ran up a double-digit lead early in the third, but the Bucks came storming back and tied the game midway through the quarter.
Then things started to get a little heated.
It started with Jaylen Brown and Kevin Porter Jr. Brown smacked Porter in the mouth with an inadvertent elbow going up for a jumper, and when Brown tumbled to the ground on the next possession, Porter stepped over him and appeared to have something to say.
Tempers began to flare, and Brown went at Porter multiple times over the next few possessions. Brown’s isolation attempts had varying degrees of success, but Portis and the Bucks were the clear winners — the Celtics’ offense sputtered and died as a combination of iso-heavy possessions and missed 3-pointers gunked up the engine.
On the other end, Portis started to heat up, dominating his matchups in the post against a smallball Celtics lineup.
