The Bucks suffer their third straight loss as Jayson Tatum scores 41 for the Celtics

BOSTON – The Milwaukee Bucks continued to struggle on their longest road trip of the season, losing 139-118 to the Boston Celtics on Sunday at TD Garden. The Bucks (22-11) lost their third straight while the Celtics (24-10) won for just the third time since Dec. 10.

Here are some takeaways from the game:

Jayson Tatum was too much for Bucks

Christmas Day was the first time the Bucks and Celtics played since Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals in May, a loss that stung the Bucks coaching staff and players all offseason. Head coach Mike Budenholzer recognized his team needed to change how it approached three-point defense.

And like in that playoff series, Bucks were again missing Khris Middleton – so it was a good way to evaluate just how far they had come since losing consecutive close-out games in May.

The Celtics came into the game taking (42.0), and making (15.8), the second-most three-pointers in the league so they were going to put them up on the Bucks. The difference was Milwaukee wasn’t going to let one player take them all. Boston pushed the pace and took threes in transition or used screens to create space.

Box score: Celtics 139, Bucks 118

More:How Bobby Portis and Grayson Allen used the Bucks' playoff loss to the Celtics to improve their games

More:Joe Ingles brings a big heart (and a lot of trash talk) to the Bucks. Can he help bring another NBA title too?

It worked in the first quarter as the Celtics went 8-for-13 from behind the three-point line and led by as many as 11 points. But they were 0-for-5 in the second quarter. Boston got back to putting up threes after the break, and the Celtics made just enough to gain some separation from the Bucks.

Defensively, the Bucks made Celtics stars Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown work – particularly in having to go up against Jrue Holiday and Giannis Antetokounmpo head-to-head – and the Bucks made sure to pay more attention to the other players. Tatum and Brown took 21 of the Celtics’ 44 first-half shots and combined for 34 points while the other eight Celtics were just 10-for-23 in the first half.

It is a recipe the Bucks have used this season against teams with a pair of dynamic players (i.e. Brooklyn) but unfortunately Tatum was just too good on this day. He was indiscriminate in his shot selection, be it pull-up threes, midrange fallaways or explosions to the basket.

As Antetokounmpo often does for the Bucks, Tatum essentially willed his team to a victory – in particular during a 20-point third quarter that saw him help extend a 62-61 halftime lead to 100-86 at the end of the third.

“I think he caught fire,” Holiday said. “He’s Jayson Tatum. He’s going to make tough shots. Seemed like he got into a rhythm making contested twos and some threes. Sometimes going one-on-one like that and somebody gets hot, you can’t do much about it.”

Tatum made 14 of his 22 shots, including 3-for-7 from behind the three-point line. He also got to the free throw line and made all 10 of his attempts there for a game-high 41 points. He also handed out five assists and pulled down seven rebounds and had three steals in a complete effort.

“He was able to get to his spot, rise up through defenders, get in rhythm,” Antetokounmpo said. “He was being aggressive. He was making great reads and plays for his team.”

Brown added 29 points on 11 of 19 shooting, and he did a lot of his damage in the fourth quarter to keep the Bucks at arm’s length. He also effectively ended the night for Antetokounmpo, drawing a technical foul on the Bucks’ big man after heavy contact following a screen with the Celtics up 18.

More:Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo avoids serious injury after falling awkwardly on right hand

Celtics slow down Bucks’ biggest two

An emphasis for the Celtics heading into the game was to not defend Antetokounmpo and Brook Lopez the same way throughout the game, feeling they had some success against Antetokounmpo in the playoffs with that mindset.

As for Lopez, who is making threes at a career-best clip, Boston interim head coach Joe Mazzulla said his team had to be dedicated to defending that shot and closing out on Lopez while being aware of his post game. Lopez has had a resurgent offensive campaign in general, but with Middleton out he’s been counted on even more offensively – to the tune of 22.3 points per game on the road trip.

Lopez scored 12 points while going 5-for-5 from the floor in the first half – but with just 1 three-pointer. He scored his other baskets in the paint. Antetokounmpo, meanwhile, was trying to work the midrange. He was just 1-for-3 from the paint and tied for the team lead in three-point attempts with three (with no makes).

It was a plan that worked in the second half, too, as Antetokounmpo didn’t find as many angles to the to burst through and Lopez just never found himself in positions to get threes up. The Bucks’ star scored 27 points but he was just 9-for-22 from the field. He made 8 of his 12 free throws.

“Just gotta be aggressive, gotta get to my spots, be better,” Antetokounmpo said of his night. “I don’t think I was aggressive as I would want to be. That’s pretty much it.”

Lopez only scored four more points on three more shots to finish with 16.

Holiday had a solid game with 23 points and seven assists and Pat Connaughton (15) and Joe Ingles (11) joined him in double figures, but it was another game the offense was just too inconsistent at times to help get them over the hump against Boston.

Bucks again down big behind three-point line

Bucks head coach Mike Budenholzer smiled when asked how he tries to get Grayson Allen to shoot more threes.

“I yell at him.”

Budenholzer laughed and qualified that Allen has more to his game than just launching threes, but the Bucks’ best three-point shooter (41.1%) had only put up 14 in his previous six games heading into Sunday. Lopez (40% on 5.3 attempts per game) and Holiday (35.9% on 6.1) have been firing indiscriminately and the next best-shooting regular, Jevon Carter (38%) lifted 14 in the last three games. In 66 games last year, he had 18 with at least 8 three-point attempts. He’s had just two so far this season.

“That’s too few,” Allen admitted.

He said it is a balance he’s trying to strike in driving the ball to create at the rim or for teammates vs. putting up his own shot, “but, the sentiment of getting more threes up, I agree with and I need to do that. I need to find ways to do that.”

The Bucks pride themselves on not forcing things on offense, but it would make sense that they’d want to see Allen’s output increase from behind the line. Once again, the Bucks couldn’t buy one from distance against the Celtics, making just 11 of their 33 attempts. Connaughton led the team in attempts with seven while Allen was just 0-for-3.

They played the Celtics tough, but in the end only one pair of numbers really mattered: 17 to 11.

It was the difference in made threes between the teams before the starter were pulled with just under four minutes to go, and that 18-point differential was just too much for the Bucks to overcome. While the Celtics went about making threes differently from the way they did in the playoffs, they still made more of them.

“The Celtics are one of the best teams in the league at doing it, right?” Connaughton said of the three ball. “The Celtics are one of the reasons we want to limit from other people. That’s what we saw last year in the playoffs. So I think they’re really good at it. They do a really good job at it.

“It’d be great for us to kind of learn from, see how they get ‘em, see how we can get either more of them and defend the line a little bit better. They hit some tough ones, they hit some off the dribble. There are some nights where look, they’re going to make a higher percentage than other nights but overall I think how can we be better at defending the three-point line and how we can we better at making it easier on ourselves offensively and get some easy ones and get some easy threes, easy twos, whatever the case might be to open up the court for our guys like Jrue and Giannis.”

5 numbers

0 Three-pointers the Celtics made in the second quarter after making eight in the first. It allowed the Bucks to outscore them 33-26 and get back into the game at the half.

3 Straight losses for Milwaukee, a season-long.

5-4 Bucks’ record on Christmas Day.

8-8 Bucks' road record. The team started 7-3 but have dropped their last five away from Fiserv Forum.

12/21/2018 The last time Milwaukee won a regular season game at TD Garden, a 120-107 victory. Interestingly, the Bucks are 4-2 in Boston in their last two postseason matchups.

Khris Middleton out vs. Celtics, Giannis off injury report

Middleton is still managing right knee soreness, and was ruled out against the Celtics after going through a pre-practice workout on Saturday at TD Garden. It is the fifth straight game the Bucks all-star will miss.

“I would say way better than I was last week when I stopped playing,” he told the Journal Sentinel after practice. “A lot of swelling in my knee went down. Just taking it day-by-day. Just trying to make sure the next time I go back out there I’ll be out there for the long run.”

Budenholzer said before the game the team will get a day off as they head home to Milwaukee, but hopes the two days before playing in Chicago on Wednesday can be helpful for Middleton.

"We'll see whatever that second day is, we'll see what he's ready for, what he can do," Budenholzer said. "Hopefully he just keeps making progress and when it's appropriate for him to play, he'll play."

Antetokounmpo headed into Friday's game against Brooklyn as probable with left knee soreness, then had an X-ray on his right hand after the game following a hard fall, but he practiced on Saturday and was removed from the injury report altogether.

Bucks history on Christmas Day

• Overall record: 5-4

• Single-game points high: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, 38 (at Detroit, 1971)

• Single-game rebounds high: Greg Smith, 22 (vs. Detroit, 1968)

• Single-game assists high: Guy Rodgers, 12 (vs. Detroit, 1968)

Play of the game is Jayson Tatum's poster on Giannis

A little over halfway through the second quarter, Tatum forced the Bucks defense to react and rotate with a strong ball fake behind the three-point line and then a kick-out to Marcus Smart in corner. But after Smart gave Tatum the ball back, Antetokounmpo came over to challenge the Celtics' star at the rim. Tatum got the best of the head-to-head play between MVP candidates with 5:07 to go to give Boston a 51-44 lead.

But more than the big finish, the play represented how the Celtics had continued to stave off Bucks runs with key baskets of their own. To that point in the game, the Bucks would battle their way back to within one or two possessions before the Celtics ultimately made a key basket or two in response.

Video of the game is Sam Hauser's banked in buzzer-beater

After former Bucks point guard Malcolm Brogdon drew an offensive foul on Antetokounmpo with 1.7 seconds left in the first quarter, the Celtics got the ball up to Sam Hauser for a final attempt. The Green Bay native and Stevens Point High School alumnus then got off a shot from 37 feet over Joe Ingles and banked it in at the buzzer to give the Celtics a 36-28 lead after one.

Who do the Bucks play next?

Finished with their spin in the Eastern time zone, the Bucks head to Chicago on Wednesday to conclude their longest road trip of the season. The Bulls won 118-113 Nov. 23 at Fiserv Forum for their signature win of the season, as they have struggled to overcome the loss of Lonzo Ball (knee) and some chemistry issues with recently maxed-out all-star Zach LaVine.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Bucks lose third straight as Jayson Tatum scores 41 for Celtics