IT Nets 37 in Win

January 30, 2017

MILWAUKEE - Isaiah Thomas and the Celtics claimed yet another victory over fatigue - and the Bucks. Thomas came into the game averaging 33.9 points on the second night of a back-to-back - 5.1 points greater than on any other number of days' rest. And in this case, he and the Celtics were playing for the fourth time in five nights. So, of course, they needed overtime to get this done.



Thomas didn't score in the extra inning (or the last 4:33 of regulation), but he'd already accounted for 37, and the Celts came through with their third straight win, 112-108. The decision brought them to 8-3 on the second night of a back-to-back this season.

"That speaks volumes," said Jae Crowder of getting this done without Thomas scoring in the latter stages, "because in the playoffs it's not going to be easy. We can't depend on him to do everything in the playoffs on the offensive end. That's the bigger picture. That's what good teams do, find a way to score and find a way to win without their offensive threat."

Thomas was still a threat, taking on the extra defenders the Bucks were sending at him and going for a game-high eight assists. "They just kept two guys on me when I was coming off the pick-and-roll 'til I passed," said Thomas, who made six of his 11 3-pointers on the night. "So I was just trying to be out there making the right play, and I did that for the most part. But they definitely switched their defense up a little bit."

And, yeah, there were those 37 points as the 5-foot-9 All-Star punched in for 41 minutes. Asked to explain his proficiency on the second night of back-to-backs, Thomas said, "I work. I work all summer preparing myself to be able to outlast the next guy. I just try to continue to keep going and show my opponent that I'm not tired."

The Celts, playing without Al Horford (groin) and Avery Bradley (Achilles), weren't too beat at the end to put the beating on the Bucks. The C's scored the first six points in OT, but missed their next three shots as Tony Snell tied it on a pair of 3-pointers. His third attempt caught only iron, however, and Crowder gave the Celts the lead with on a pair of free throws with 28.2 left.

Marcus Smart switched onto Giannis Antetokounmpo and harassed him into a miss in the lane, and Crowder hit two more freebies with 10.2 left for the final points. The Celts, having led by as many as 16 a quarter before, found themselves in a fight in the fourth.

After Thomas drilled a 3-pointer to give them an 88-82 lead, Milwaukee came back with the next five points. Two 1-of-2 efforts from the free throw line by Smart were followed with an Antetokounmpo trey that gave Milwaukee a tie for the first time. Their first lead came on a Greg Monroe three-point play with 4:54 left.

Thomas responded with a 3-pointer, and Jaylen Brown scored on a steal and fast-break drive. Jabari Parker scored, and Brown hit a trey. But Monroe scored inside and then hit three free throws on two trips to the line to even the game at 102 with 36.8 seconds left. There would be an exchange of turnovers before Thomas missed a trey and Brown couldn't get his follow-up to go down, sending the game to the extra period.

The Celtics were able to finish it off from there.

"As we said when we got beat a couple of times when teams were coming off back-to-backs and we had rest, some of that stuff is unpredictable," said coach Brad Stevens. "You just play as hard as you can and as well as you can, and hopefully things work out for you. I thought we played pretty darn well, to be honest, and then defensively in the overtime, I thought we were excellent." One night after going for a season-high 39 points in the first quarter against Orlando, the Celtics evidently weren't satisfied.

So they went out and hit the Bucks with 42 in the first 12 minutes, taking a 15-point lead by bagging 12 of their 19 shots from the floor (63.2 percent) and half of their 14 attempts from beyond the 3-point arc. Crowder hit three of his four on the way to 11 points, while Thomas made two of his three treys as part of his 10-point frame.