Luckily for the Celtics, most Boston sports fans were probably huddled around the television repping their favorite Tom Brady jersey, reminiscing on Bill Belichick and the good ‘ole days Thursday night.
Any time you have an excuse to rewatch Super Bowl 51, you must do it, right?
Perhaps by the time they got through Super 53, it was time to move on to the team that fans hope could be the next Boston dynasty – The Celtics.
But for some reason, the game wasn’t televised.
That’s how bad things got Thursday night.
With 2:59 remaining in the third quarter, Payton Pritchard committed a foul, which led to Joe Mazzulla needing to take the mandatory TV timeout.
Following a commercial break, TNT returned with a studio update from Ernie Johnson, who was as surprised as everyone else watching the game.
“So, this game is out of hand, obviously. 100-62 is the score in Milwaukee,” Johnson said. “So we’re thinking, let’s see what else is going on in the league. And Oklahoma City, by the way, is up 36 at the half, so we’re not going there. So, we’ll try the Knicks and the Mavs, and it’s a 47-28 game, but it’s closer than what’s going on in the mean streets.”
Needless to say, the game in Milwaukee was over quickly.
So quickly that when Mazzulla processed the first half and looked at the game sheet, he decided to sit his starters for the entire second half.
“I just thought it was in the best interest of our team,” Mazzulla said postgame when discussing the decision to rest his starters. “Just the way the game was going. Just kind of thought that was best for everybody.”
Damian Lillard nailed a 27-foot step-back three, scoring the first points of the game and opening the scoring and the floodgates for Milwaukee, who opened the contest on an 11-2 run, setting the tone early.
From the outset, the Celtics appeared drained. Playing their fifth game in seven nights, following an overnight flight just hours after substantial minutes in an overtime victory against the Minnesota Timberwolves at the TD Garden the previous night, they looked like a team battling fatigue. The outcome, while far more dramatic, unfolded as anticipated.
Though it never felt it, the Celtics held around the first ten minutes before Milwaukee closed the first quarter on a 10-0 run. As a result, the Celtics (statistically the best first-quarter team in the league) were trailing by 18 heading into the second.
Things only got worse in the second quarter, as the Bucks extended their run to 25-0, scoring the first 15 consecutive points to start the frame, building their lead to 33.
The Celtics went 6:36 of game time without scoring a basket over that stretch.
Boston barely escaped being doubled up at the half, as they were outscored 75-38 in the first half. Their 37-point halftime deficit marked their second-largest in franchise history – trailing just a 39-point deficit in 1967.
Boston’s 38 points on 16-of-50 (32%) shooting from the field and 1-of-16 (0.63%) were their fewest scored in any half this season. On the other hand, Milwaukee’s 75 points on 28-of-49 (57.1%) shooting from the field and 11-of-22 (50%) from deep are the most Boston has surrendered in any half this season.
“It wasn’t a lack of us not playing hard,” Jrue Holiday said postgame. “Just having a tough schedule, it being a back-to-back, us going into overtime [the night before], having a flight.”
While it may sound like an excuse to some, Holiday’s assessment is accurate, although it doesn’t excuse a 33-point blowout, matching their most significant defeat in the last 21 years. This was one of those “scheduled losses” for the Celtics.
A “scheduled loss” sounds like a cheap cop-out, but this was one of those. Three cities in four days is a tough ask for anybody. Moreover, Monday and Wednesday’s games were tightly contested, with Wednesday night even going into overtime.
Adding to the difficulty, the Bucks were well-rested and eager for a win, having not played since Monday and riding a two-game losing streak.
“I trust our character. I trust our team,” Mazzulla said. “You have to look at this and say, ‘ok, is this a one-off? Is this a trend? Is this something that you have to be concerned about?’ And when you look at stuff like that, the answer is no, no. Things like this happen.”
“We’re not on this side of it very often. And so when you are, it’s good to learn from it,” Mazzulla added.
Before Thursday night, two or fewer possessions decided six of Boston’s eight losses. Mazzulla is right. The Celtics are hardly ever on the wrong side of a blowout. In fact, this is the first time it’s happened, and we are now 38 games in.
“If you look at our team over the course of these (38 games), we’ve developed a toughness, a mindset,” Mazzulla said. “We’ve done a lot of great things on back-to-backs. We’ve done a lot of great things shorthanded, and tonight just wasn’t our night. And I think you have to have the humility to know that from time to time.”
Boston entered Thursday night an NBA-best 5-1 on the second night of a back-to-back and is 7-1 when coming off a loss this season. They have earned the benefit of the doubt. Games like Thursday night inevitably happen across an 82-game slate. It’s a matter of not allowing it to become a trend, and this Celtics team has given you every reason to believe it won’t.
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