BOSTON — It took a wild and chaotic back-and-forth alternate with the Milwaukee Bucks for the Celtics to proceed their undefeated head begin to the season on Monday night time, however the chaos was fully intentional.
In addition to enduring a Damian Lillard and Giannis Antetokounmpo combining to attain 63 factors, plus the absence of Sam Hauser (again), the Celtics additionally wanted to navigate the mayhem that erupted within the third quarter. Boston was charged for a delay-of-game and issued a technical foul, simply earlier than Jayson Tatum, too, was hit with a technical foul from the officers. Lillard went to the road to place Milwaukee forward, 80-79, which supplied a late-game problem for the Celtics.
It was, nevertheless, a problem head coach Joe Mazzulla welcomed with open arms.
“We have been similar to, let’s attempt to create as a lot chaos as we are able to. That was it,” Mazzulla defined after the 119-108 win. “That’s what we felt just like the atmosphere wanted on the time. It was let’s simply create chaos so we’re simply going to create it. After which we simply created the chaos collectively, went by way of the chaos collectively. Responded fairly properly.”
Mazzulla added: “No person had any thought what was occurring, proper? Simply chaos. Yeah, that’s good. That’s precisely what we would have liked.”
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Quickly after the Celtics cooked up a plate of selfmade chaos, the vitality shifted. Derrick White knocked down a pair of 3-pointers on consecutive possessions and blocked Antetokounmpo’s layup try on the different finish. Payton Pritchard, the grasp of quarter-ending buzzer beaters, closed out the body by drilling a last-second three over 6-foot-5 Delon Wright, to provide Boston a 90-82 lead.
Bucks head coach Doc Rivers hung his head and clenched his knees in disbelief as Pritchard infused the Celtics bench — and followers — with vitality.
“I believe we positively have been seeking to form of get going,” Jaylen Brown mentioned. “I believe within the first half, we have been form of dragging our toes a bit bit. Wasn’t taking part in to our commonplace and I believe in that third quarter we had a bit bit extra of a spark about ourselves.”
Boston rode its third-quarter momentum for the ultimate 12 minutes of regulation, occurring a 29-21 run to take a 16-point lead with 1:49 minutes left to play. Mazzulla instantly unloaded the bench and pulled all Celtics starters from the ground, signaling the untimely ending to Boston’s first conflict with Milwaukee.
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It’s solely been 4 video games, however the Celtics have already skilled blowing groups out, battling by way of a nail-bitter and turning a hard-fought rival battle with a convention foe — and the officers — right into a double-digit victory. Not a foul begin to a title protection, particularly with Kristaps Porzingis not current.
