{"id":500502,"date":"2026-03-03T04:12:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T04:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/500502\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T04:12:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T04:12:10","slug":"shorthanded-celtics-stifle-bucks-in-giannis-antetokounmpos-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/500502\/","title":{"rendered":"Shorthanded Celtics Stifle Bucks In Giannis Antetokounmpo’s Return"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shorthanded Celtics Stifle Bucks In Giannis Antetokounmpo’s Return<\/a> originally appeared on NESN<\/a>. Add NESN as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After taking care of business<\/a> at home against the Philadelphia 76ers on Sunday night, the Boston Celtics<\/a> hit the road to battle the Milwaukee Bucks on Monday.<\/p>\n

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The day featured several concerning developments for the Celtics, who announced they were resting Jaylen Brown and Neemias Queta<\/a> on the second night of a back-to-back. Meanwhile, the Bucks finally got two-time NBA MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo back from a calf injury<\/a> for the first time since late January.<\/p>\n

In the end, however, none of that mattered. Boston was the better team, and it played like it.<\/p>\n

The Celtics raced ahead early and never looked back, building a double-digit lead in the first quarter and cruising to an easy\u00a0108-81 victory.<\/p>\n

Boston dominated wire-to-wire, winning every quarter against former Celtics head coach Doc Rivers. It won the rebounding battle easily despite missing Queta, crushing Milwaukee on the boards by\u00a013.<\/p>\n

Payton Pritchard bounced back after going scoreless on Sunday, leading both sides with 25 points and five 3-pointers. However, Hugo Gonzalez was the star of the show<\/a>, putting together the best game of his NBA career thus far with\u00a018 points and\u00a016 rebounds\u00a0— both career-highs — in a massive double-double.<\/p>\n

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Nikola Vucevic drew his first start in a Boston uniform with Queta out, notching 10 points, seven assists and five rebounds. Derrick White added 18 points and nine assists, tying Pritchard for the team lead in dimes.<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly,\u00a0Antetokounmpo was a bit rusty in his first game since Jan. 23. He led the Bucks with\u00a019 points and\u00a011 rebounds but struggled with his shot, going just 7-for-18 from the floor.<\/p>\n

The surging Celtics have now won\u00a012 of their last\u00a014 games, improving to\u00a041-20 overall and 6-1 without Brown this season. They’ll go for their fourth straight win when they host the Charlotte Hornets at TD Garden on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

More NBA:\u00a0Hugo Gonzalez Grabs 16 Rebounds In Astounding Double-Double Performance For Celtics<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shorthanded Celtics Stifle Bucks In Giannis Antetokounmpo’s Return originally appeared on NESN. Add NESN as a Preferred Source…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500503,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[2242,211460,11949,39048,359,6759,29175,360,355,33195,34909,59097,2113,99],"class_list":["post-500502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-boston-celtics","tag-career-night","tag-charlotte-hornets","tag-derrick-white","tag-giannis-antetokounmpo","tag-hugo-gonzalez","tag-jaylen-brown","tag-milwaukee-bucks","tag-nba","tag-neemias-queta","tag-nikola-vucevic","tag-payton-pritchard","tag-philadelphia-76ers","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}