The picture is an AI-generated illustration, not a photograph from the match
The Bucks led 20-6 inside five minutes and were still ahead after one quarter, yet the Boston Celtics finished Sunday night at Fiserv Forum with a 117-97 win, an 18-0 run that decided the game and a Milwaukee team now 1-9.
Kuzma's five minutes, then nothing
Kyle Kuzma scored 14 points in the first five minutes and pushed the Bucks to a 20-6 lead, the largest advantage Milwaukee produced in the game.
Boston's first quarter ended 27-25 behind because Tatum took the closing possessions, scoring the period's final 10 points to keep the gap inside two.
Paul George supplied the first eight points of the second quarter, and his three-pointer in the opening minute gave Boston its first lead at 28-27.
The pattern was already set four days earlier, when Boston won 109-102 without playing Tatum, and the Celtics arrived in Milwaukee off a 39-point win at Charlotte.
A layup and another three from George capped an 18-0 run that took Boston out of a 20-6 hole and into a lead they did not surrender again.
The role players while Tatum sat
The third quarter settled it: a 9-0 start to the period made it 22 and the final score read 117-97.
Tatum finished with 21 points on 6-of-19 shooting, 5-of-11 from three and six assists, and spent the entire fourth quarter on the bench.
George led all starters with 27 points on 11-of-18 shooting, including 5-of-10 from distance, plus three rebounds, one assist and two steals for a plus-16 rating.
Payton Pritchard scored 12 points on 4-of-11 three-point shooting for a team-best plus-29, and Derrick White added nine points and seven assists.
Boston's frontcourt did the quiet work: Robinson was perfect from the field with four steals, and Queta filled a 13-point, nine-rebound line in 22 minutes.
Turner's three points and a career night elsewhere
At 1-9 the Bucks are in territory they have not occupied since 1993-94, when a 10-loss opening stretch preceded a 20-62 season.
Kuzma led Milwaukee with 27 points on 10-of-17 shooting and 6-of-13 from three, adding four rebounds and two blocks in 31 minutes.
Beyond that, Myles Turner scored three points on 1-of-8 shooting with five rebounds and a career-high seven assists, and has shot 1-of-15 across his last two games.
Notably, the Celtics move to 8-2 and are scheduled at Philadelphia on Tuesday night before finishing the trip in Toronto; the Bucks are also on the road in New York on Tuesday.
The team lines tell it: 47 percent shooting, 48 rebounds, 27 assists and 12 steals for Boston against 35-of-79 shooting and 15 turnovers for Milwaukee.
Editor's take: Milwaukee's 20-6 start is the number that should bother its staff most: leads like that are not lost by accident, they are lost possession by possession.
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