Mazzulla Trusts Celtics Blowout Loss to Bucks on Back-to-Back was Aberration

MILWAUKEE — Payton Pritchard, Svi Mykhailiuk, Lamar Stevens, Sam Hauser and Luke Kornet took the floor after halftime on Thursday. It didn’t begin as a rest night.

“I just thought it was in the best interest of our team,” Joe Mazzulla said post-game. “The way the game was going. I thought that was what was best for everybody … I can’t give you a more elaborate answer.”

Boston fell behind by 37 points in an anticlimactic follow-up to the instant classic the previous night against Minnesota. Mazzulla sensed the starters didn’t have anything and pulled the plug in a move that caused TNT to drop the broadcast midway through the third quarter to air Knicks-Mavericks before returning for the fourth. Mazzulla later said the starters wanted to return, but overruled them given the abnormal results on display.

The 135-102 loss marked the Celtics’ fifth game in seven days, along with Jrue Holiday’s return to Milwaukee. A near full Bucks team built their fourth-largest halftime advantage ever over the Celtics minus only Al Horford, piling on into the third after their comeback in the first meeting between the two teams fell short in November.

“We did some good things at Boston, probably a little too late,” Bucks coach Adrian Griffin said pre-game. “But we got back in the game when we settled down and started executing on both sides of the ball. I always say when you play elite teams like Golden State in the past, sometimes your offense has to be your best defense. Because they’re gonna score.”

The Celtics didn’t — finishing 16-for-50 from the field in the first half and missing all eight threes they attempted in a 1-for-16 start from deep. Jaylen Brown started 2-for-7, firing up five mid-rangers in an opening frame where Boston hit all five shots at the rim and fell to 2-for-12 in between. Giannis Antetokounmpo exploded past Brown, who stumbled and fell while backtracking, and Antetokounmpo down the first of eight flushes at the rim. Damian Lillard hit a pair of threes and Milwaukee led 10-2 — never looking back.

Boston tried early to exploit the Lillard matchup. The Bucks countered by scrambling Lillard out of his matchups against Kristaps Porzingis and the Jays. Oshae Brissett capped the Celtics’ best early stretch by driving past that switch, discarding Lillard and throwing down with one hand. Boston also struggled defensively, though, rotating slowly to Bobby Portis when the Bucks put Brissett and Sam Hauser in actions. Milwaukee comfortably shot over Luke Kornet and the drop into Boston’s bench unit. The Celtics briefly pulled back within four on a fourth-chance Hauser basket and Porzingis put back — which Milwaukee answered with a 25-0 run.

“I think it wasn’t a lack of us not playing hard,” Holiday, the lone Celtics starter who spoke after the game, said. “It was just having a tough schedule, then it being a back-to-back that’s going into overtime, having a flight. I think just based off the way the game went, sometimes coaches make decisions like that. (Mazzulla) asked us and we wanted to fight, we wanted to stay in there and play, but as players, sometimes you have to listen to your coaches too. I appreciate Joe for that, because I think as a coach, he definitely does care about our wellbeing and he also knows we’re gonna fight until the end no matter what the score was.”

The Bucks shot 10-for-15, grabbing three offensive rebounds, and held Boston to an 0-for-10 drought during the stretch between the first and second quarter that’ll likely go down as the season’s low point. Holiday, who received a loud ovation during his first half video tribute, fell to 1-for-7 and watched Brissett air-mail a three when Boston tried to break into longer passing sequences. Brissett stood strong against Lillard in transition, but Milwaukee found Portis wide open in the corner with a few swing passes. Then, Portis stole the ball from Tatum and dunked in transition.

Pritchard and Hauser missed their threes to begin the second, already down 18, and the Bucks turned their misses into more points for Portis. Khris Middleton snuck a pass to Antetokounmpo behind Boston’s defense dribbling along the baseline, easily pulled Kornet out of the lane and capped the run positioning Brook Lopez inside against his former teammate Holiday for the easy finish.

A 4-0 Celtics run that followed forced a Griffin timeout, about all the momentum Boston could muster through halftime, after which Milwaukee’s starters kept playing and led by as many as 43 to remove all doubt about whether the Bucks would even the season series.

The team’s in-arena announcer also made an early prediction in her pre-game remarks — calling it all but certain the top two teams in the east would meet in the conference finals.

“Everything’s about the players,” Mazzulla said. “You look at the intentions and the character of your team … I trust our character and I trust our team. You have to look at this and said, ok … is this a trend? Is this something you have to be concerned about? … the answer is no, no. Things like this happen and you could actually use them as opportunities, because it gives you perspective, you’re able to take a deep breath and as I said, we’re not on this side of that very often. So when you are, it’s good to learn from it … you have to always do what’s best for the players … our guys bring it every single night, every single day and it’s not always gonna go your way.”

“It’s more about how you respond to it … we gave it a shot.”