A not-so-merry Christmas: 10 Takeaways from Celtics-Bucks

1. Let’s start with the banged-up Boston Celtics taking the defending champions down to the wire on the road on Christmas Day being pretty good. Doing so when the entirety of the frontcourt rotation was Robert Williams, Jabari Parker and Juancho Hernangomez is even better.

If you just looked at the box score and knew nothing else, you’d probably say something like “What a gutty effort!” and you’d be correct. It was a gutty effort. The team battled all game long.

But…

Yeah. That doesn’t really tell the story, does it?

After Jayson Tatum hit a pair of free throws with 5:28 to play, the Celtics led the Milwaukee Bucks 109-96. Over that final 5:28, Milwaukee outscored Boston 21-4.

A late-game…