The third quarter was a complete and utter disaster for the Boston Celtics on Thursday night. Every three they took was off—literally. They shot 0-of-12 from behind the arc in the third, marking the first time all season they failed to make a three-pointer in a quarter. Plus, they shot 4-of-22 (18.2%), which is their worst single-quarter mark of the season, and the fifth-worst in the last decade.
Simultaneously, Kyle Kuzma shot 5-of-6 for 11 points, and Bobby Portis shot 3-of-4 for seven points. Milwaukee finished the quarter shooting 10-of-15. They couldn’t miss. Heading into the game, the Celtics had won 10 of 12, and the Bucks had lost 10 of 12.
It was an NBA classic. One team comes down off their recent high, and the other gets hot after a low. A tale as old as time.
Celtics' loss to Bucks was an NBA classic (in worst way possible)
Portis opened up the third quarter by nailing two corner threes with Celtics players in his face. Milwaukee took a 14-point lead by the nine-minute mark. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong for Boston.
Every once in a while, these types of games happen. Players get hot. They can’t miss. Portis and Kuzma embodied this truth on Thursday. All the while, the Celtics just couldn’t find any rhythm.
At one point early in the fourth, Sam Hauser missed two open threes, cut in off a Jordan Walsh offensive rebound, and then missed a layup. It just wasn’t his night.
That was exactly how things went for the entire Celtics lineup in the second half. They opened up the half by shooting 0-of-16 from beyond the arc—an unfathomable cold spell. Jaylen Brown broke the streak with 7:40 left in the fourth… and then Cole Anthony answered.
Perhaps the offense stagnated a bit too much early in the third. Perhaps the defensive intensity slowed down. But some of the shots Milwaukee were hitting were contested, and most of Boston’s threes were open. But in the world of NBA scoring, process doesn’t matter. Results do. (Much to Joe Mazzulla’s dismay.)
The Celtics weren’t going to win out this season. Their five-game win streak was inevitably going to end.
Losing it to a Giannis Antetokounmpo-less Bucks team certainly wasn’t on many people’s Bingo cards, but sometimes, that’s just how things happen.
An outlier shooting performance (from both sides) won’t dictate the rest of the Celtics’ season. But it was certainly brutal to watch happen in real time.