INSTANT REACTION: Celtics’ winning streak snapped by Giannis-less Bucks in disappointing Loss

INSTANT REACTION: Celtics’ winning streak snapped by Giannis-less Bucks in disappointing Loss

All right, Celtics postgame live. Celtics falling 116 to 101 in Milwaukee. A game in which they led by seven at the half. They were 11 of 23 from three to start, then went three of 26 the remainder of the game, including 16 straight misses from behind the arc. Tom Giles, Chris Forsber, Eddie House. Eddie, your opening thoughts on this one where Celtics put up 67 points in the first half, 34 in the second half. Well, it wasn’t about the points they were able to put up in the first half and the lack of points they were able to put up in the second half. It was the lack of defense that they had in the second half. You look at what Milwaukee was able to do, shooting damn near 60% from the field, 58%. And 45 from three. And this is not I mean, you know, Milwaukee came in knowing that they could shoot the three. They’re going to shoot the three. But we didn’t do anything to defend it in the second half. I thought that um our defense was lackluster. We allowed our lack of making shots to affect us on the defensive end. And that’s that’s like that’s always been the issue. You know, we when we talk about this team for for the last few years, it’s always been you can’t allow your miss shots to affect what you’re going to do on the defensive end. And I thought in the second half that’s exactly what happened. Could it have been any more jarringly opposite? From Bobby Portoris getting whatever he wanted to fall and barking at anyone who would listen and getting in Jaylen Brown’s face to Sam Hower who could not buy a single bucket in his return home. And look, Sam had that one sequence early fourth quarter, misses two threes, looks like he’s going to get a little hustle layup and smokes that and then misses the tip in. At that point, you’re like, you know what, just not your night, right? And credit to the Celtics. They tried to throw one more punch, but they just could not come up with any stops tonight. I I don’t want to just chalk it up to like they were due for some offensive regression. They’ve been putting up video game numbers lately and even the first half wasn’t that bad, but man, that second half was abysmal and then they let it bleed into trying to get defensive stops and it just was not there tonight. I don’t know if it’s the time off or whatever the case may be is. Charles, you know how much I love Milwaukee. Maybe that’s all it is, but they’ve got to be better in that instance. And I won’t get too worked up about it because they’ve been so good at avoiding that sort of nonsense over the course of the season. It’s just like but little bit of PTSD with the way that uh when shots aren’t falling how they can it can bleed the other way. And speaking of the defense, Kyle Koosma season high 31. Bobby Poris season high 27. They both shot unbelievably from the field. Uh we got Drew and Scowl joining us now fellas. And uh obviously the the Celtics with that seven-point lead at the break and uh things really not going their way there in the second half. Yeah, Giles, it was a pretty shocking second half doing my own little arithmetic here. I had the Bucks shooting almost 65% from the floor in the second half. Scout, was that more about Celtics playing poor defense or guys like Bobby Porters just making shots? Well, I think it was about momentum and the Bucks had a game plan today. You you could see it right from the start. They’ve been getting crushed defensively. They’ve been getting crushed about their rebounding and obviously the Giannis situation is lingering over them. They want to prove to Giannis and that, you know, that these guys are pros and you should come want to play with us, not want to go someplace else. So, a lot of motivation for them. Give the Bucks credit for knocking down shots. As far as us, I think it was one of those games where the offense and missing shots affected our defense. We never played with great energy defensively in the second half. We did some things right. We were in the right position, but ultimately, you get a guy like Bobby Porter start making shots, it’s hard to turn that water off. And if we were if we were on the other end making shots, not even just average, not even as bad as we were, not even how we’ve been lately, it would have been a different game. And you know, I would like us in those clutch situations, but just we went ice cold and they got flaming hot. Yeah, Celtics missed their first 16 three-point attempts of the second half. Fourth longest streak in Celtics history of missed three-pointers. And you know, Scout, me personally, I give all the credit for the Buck success to that players onlyly meeting that Giannis led said, “Let’s focus on basketball,” which was, you know, how much I love players only, which is the most ridiculous reporting ever when he’s the guy deleting everything from his social media and everything. But it is a good reminder about how good the NBA is because you think about the three guys who killed the Celtics today. It’s Kevin Porter warmed up with the snapback hat on. Yeah. I don’t know. Do you put that in the laundry or what? I don’t know how that works when it gets all sweaty. Just throw it away, find. It was definitely sweaty. He was like, “White man can’t jump.” He had it on backwards. Boom, boom, boom. Going through it work. I’ve never seen that. But okay, that’s one. He ended up with a triple double. So it work for him. So Kevin Porter, Kyle Kosma had 30 plus. And then Bobby Porter didn’t miss a single shot. All guys you would say, “Come on, they’re not going to they’re not going to kill us.” But those were the three dudes that did it for. No, the thing is, you know, those three guys are clearly capable. What? But is is it sustaining? And today it was sustaining for them. And that was a problem. I, you know, I’m sure the Celtics were trying to match up Hunt and stuff like that, but sometimes sometimes you just got to go out there and compete. And I felt like in the second half, we kind of lost our edge a little bit. And do you feel like they’ve done a better job this year of maintaining pace? Yeah. And what worked for them in the first half? Well, not lately. In the Toronto game, we did the same thing. So, I I’m not sure what’s going on. I know what they’re trying to do, the matchup hunting, but there’s a better way to get into that. You just want to get into it a lot quicker. You know, it’s almost like just play fast and figure out an emphasis to still matchup hunt, but you know, walking the ball up, getting up against the clock, jacking up a three with 5 seconds to go. It’s not great offense, even if you like the matchup. Yeah, Jaylen Brown still had 30. Jordan Wall still brought incredible energy, Giles, but obviously second half was all Milwaukee, and it was pretty wild to see in person. All right. Uh, yeah, a tough one here for the Celtics. and again snaps that fivegame winning streak as the Bucks go to 11 and 15 on the year.

Our Postgame Live crew breaks down the Celtics’ 116-101 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks