Jason Kidd’s Milwaukee Bucks made a late run at keeping the Boston Celtics from winning their ninth straight home game, but they ultimately came up just short of winning a crucial Eastern Conference matchup.
Jabari Parker put up 22 points and Giannis Antetokounmpo flirted with a triple-double with 14 points with eight assists and seven rebounds, but the Bucks (24-34) lost to the Celtics (34-25) Thursday 112-107 in Boston.
“We’ve got to take care of the ball,” Jason said. “We had some turnovers there, also offensive rebounds. Again, we gave up too many of those tonight against a very talented team.”
The Bucks fell behind 9-2 a minute and a half into the game after Jae Crowder drove in for a finger roll. Antetokounmpo brought his team within one of the lead when he flushed down a driving dunk and converted a free throw with 5:56 left in the first quarter.
“Jabari and Giannis both had pretty good games,” Jason said. “Giannis is 14, 8 and 7. We’ll get to a point of saying that’s a bad night for him.”
The Celtics regained control, however, to lead 35-25 at the end of the first quarter. With 9:18 left in the second, Avery Bradley knocked down a shot to give the Celtics a 42-27 lead, but Michael Carter-Williams answered with a seven-footer to cut the Bucks deficit back down to 10 points a few minutes later. Greg Monroe led the bench with 20 points and eight rebounds, while MCW finished with 12 points, three assists and three boards.
“Our bench, Michael and Moose were big…They gave us some firepower when they were on the floor,” Jason said.
Carter-Williams added four more points off a couple of free throws and a driving layup with 4:18 remaining in the first half to reduce the Celtics lead to 50-44. But once again, Boston finished the quarter strong and led by 10 at the half.
At the 9:10 mark in the third quarter, Isaiah Thomas, who led all scorers with 27 points, dribbled through traffic and dropped a behind-the-back assist off to Amir Johnson to give the Celtics a 73-55 advantage. He earned some high praise from J-Kidd.
“Isaiah is having a heck of a year,” Jason said. “He’s an All-Star, well-deserved.”
Khris Middleton, who added 21 for the Bucks, cut the Celtics lead down to 10 once again when he hit from seven feet out with 7:01 left in the third quarter. Still, Boston kept Milwaukee at arm’s length, leading 88-73 going into the final period.
A couple minutes into the fourth quarter, Parker hit a pair of free throws to make it 90-81 in favor of the Celtics, and Milwaukee just kept chipping away from there. Almost halfway through the period, Greg Monroe and Parker converted on a couple layups to push the score to 96-89 with 6:52 to play.
The game really heated up when Parker made a layup off an assist from Middleton with 4:24 remaining to make it 100-95, with the Bucks trailing by just five.
The Celtics regained control with a 106-95 lead, but a Middleton 26-foot three-pointer with 3:21 on the clock brought the Bucks right back in it. A few minutes later, Middleton added a dunk with 1:12 left to trim the Celtics lead to just four, 106-102.
However, just when the Bucks were seriously threatening the comeback, Crowder answered with a corner trey off a feed from Thomas to give Boston breathing room. Four is as close as Bucks came the rest of the night.
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[Thomas] made a heck of a play to find his teammate in the corner,” Jason said.NEXT UP
Milwaukee is back home Saturday to face the Detroit Pistons.
The two teams have met twice this season, with each team winning once. The Bucks won at home on Nov. 23 109-88, but lost a repeat matchup in Detroit on Dec. 4 102-95. The game against the Pistons is the first in a five-game home stretch for the Bucks.
“We’re going to get on a roll,” Parker said. “We have five home games and we’ll try to take advantage of it, try to win all five of them.”
The game tips at 7:30 p.m CT on Fox Sports Wisconsin.
