Milwaukee Bucks 119-112 Boston Celtics: Twitter cries foul over referees call with Tatum struggling with shooting all night | NBA 2019-20
The Milwaukee Bucks began their season restart in the NBA bubble, Orlando with a 119-112 win against the Boston Celtics with Giannis Antetokounmpo leading the way with 36 points and 15 rebounds. The Boston Celtics were led by Marcus Smart and Jaylen Brown who scored 23 and 22 points respectively.
Kemba Walker played only 19 minutes in this game but scored 16 points with 5-9 shooting and played a crucial role in getting the Boston Celtics going in the first half. Celtics' star Jayson Tatum had a terrible 2-18 shooting night and ended with just 5 points in 32 minutes.
Milwaukee Bucks came out strong
The first quarter began disastrously for the Boston Celtics who were simply unable to put the ball in the basket. The Milwaukee Bucks cruised to 17-2 start before the Celtics scored their first field goal with a jumpshot from Kemba Walker.
The Boston Celtics soon hit their stride with Marcus Smart on the court, and came back to cut the lead to 2 while Giannis was off the floor. The first quarter ended with the Bucks leading with a score of 33-25.
Boston Celtics play catch up as the Milwaukee Bucks dominated
The second quarter saw the Celtics initially keeping up with the Bucks with the lead cut to 1 point at 34-33. The Milwaukee Bucks cut loose with a slew of 3s to maintained a 10 point lead for much of the second quarter. The Boston Celtics finally came back to end the first half down 6 at 64-58.
Giannis had scored 16 points with 10 rebounds and 3 assists in just 13 minutes in the first half. A whopping 32 personal fouls were called in the first half. These free throws helped the Celtics keep up with the Bucks while they struggled with shooting all night.
Boston Celtics finally take the lead
In a hard fought third quarter, the Celtics finally managed to draw level and take the lead at 83-82. However, with Kemba out after his minute restrictions and Jaylen Brown sitting out with 5 personal fouls, the Celtics were led by Marcus Smart and Gordon Hayward.
Both teams ended the third quarter with 87 points each.
Foul calls in focus in the final minutes of play
The Milwaukee Bucks started the fourth quarter with some good shooting to take a 6 point lead but the Celtics kept up and made it a one possession game. One of the turning points in the game was a goaltend by Giannis Antetokounmpo that was not called by the referees which would have put the Celtics up by one.
With under 3 minutes remaining in the game, in a decisive moment, the referees chose to overturn a foul call on Giannis who already had 5 fouls in the game, when the Milwaukee Bucks were leading 107-105. This proved to be the turning point in the game as Giannis with his second life scored 6 decisive points as the Milwaukee Bucks finally won the game 119-112.
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