“If we don’t play hard, they’re gonna kick our a**” -Giannis
The Milwaukee Bucks suffered a 41-point loss to the Boston Celtics on Thursday, losing out on the chance to clinch the no. 1 seed in the East.
The no. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference Milwaukee Bucks suffered - and I do mean suffered - a 41-point loss to the no. 2 seed Boston Celtics on Thursday, 140-99. It was a beating so bad you almost just felt pity on the Bucks. This was their chance to clinch their spot at number one in the East, but instead, the Celtics trampled all over them. Now, the Bucks’ magic number is four in their last five games to clinch the top seed. Meanwhile, the Celtics won the tiebreaker with that win (2-1 in the series).
“They’re going to kick our a**. Simple as that.”
It was an ugly loss for Milwaukee. They missed 11 three-pointers in the second quarter and the Celtics outscored them by 20 points. Meanwhile, the Celtics made 60% of their threes and Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown controlled the game, putting up a combined 70 points over the Bucks. As Jrue Holiday put it, the Bucks “sh*t the bed”.
Indeed, this result produced a lot of swearing and disappointment from the Bucks’ side - no surprise there. Giannis Antetokounmpo finished with just 24 points on 11 of 27 shooting, including 0 for 5 from behind the three-point line.
“It’s not hard to understand,” said Antetokounmpo. “If you’re not focused, if you don’t play hard, they’re going to kick our a**. It’s as simple as that. They did it tonight. Won by 40. If you’re not locked in, if you don’t play hard, and if you don’t go out there and make it tough for them, they’re going to kick our a**.”
“There’s no level of concern. It’s a fact. So now you have this in your head and it’s up to us to see what we’re going to do with it. Are we going to go and play the same way? And if we play the same way, we’ll have the same outcome. We’ve got to change, we’ve got to compete, we’ve got to have some pride and hopefully we can do that. And if we do that maybe we have a chance to win.”
The Celtics are now 53-24 and just two games behind the Bucks (55-22) for the first seed and best record in the league. However, even if the Celtics don’t win home court advantage, they proved (again) last night, that they can win on any court.