The Celtics’ fourth-stringer-turned-standout center delivered the best game of his NBA career on Sunday night.
Twenty-four hours later, their youngest player did the same.
Rookie Hugo Gonzalez put on a terrific two-way performance to lead the shorthanded Celtics to a 108-81 win over Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks at Fiserv Forum.
Gonzalez has been an advanced metrics darling in his first NBA season — the only two players ranked in the top 10 in offensive, defensive and net rating entering Monday were him and reigning NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander — but rarely stuffs the conventional stat sheet. The 20-year-old did just that on Monday, however, setting career highs with 18 points and 16 rebounds while adding three steals and two blocks in 34 minutes.
The only other Celtics rookie to hit those marks in a game: Larry Bird in 1979.
“It just means that the work ethic is there,” Gonzalez, who shot 7-for-15 from the field, said in a postgame interview with NBC Sports Boston’s Abby Chin. “Just try to keep doing what you’re doing and keep trusting. Obviously, it’s not going to be perfect. It’s not going to be like this every single day. … But just keep following the work that we’re doing and keep following this path that we’re on. We’re in great shape right now to keep competing.”
Boston sat top scorer Jaylen Brown (illness) and Sunday’s star, Neemias Queta (rest), on the second night of a home/road back-to-back, but it faced little resistance from the Bucks, leading by double digits for nearly the entire second half.
The Celtics improved to 6-1 this season without Brown — all six wins coming by at least 16 points — and 41-20 overall as they head into Wednesday’s home matchup with the upstart Charlotte Hornets (7:30 p.m.).
“One of the strengths of the locker room has always been being able to win games when guys have been out,” head coach Joe Mazzulla told reporters postgame. “We’ve sat guys over the last three, four years and still have been able to win games. That’s just kind of the DNA of the locker room, and you’re continuing to see that.”
Payton Pritchard led all scorers with 25 points on 10-of-23 shooting off the bench after being held scoreless in the previous night’s win over Philadelphia. He and Derrick White (18 points) each dished out nine of Boston’s 31 assists. The Celtics outrebounded the Bucks 54-41 and owned a 95-74 edge in field-goal attempts.
Antetokounmpo had 19 points and 11 rebounds in 25 minutes in his first game back after missing the previous five-plus weeks with a calf strain. The rest of Milwaukee’s roster combined for just 62 points.
“I think we’ve just got our standard, and we want to maintain it every single game,” Gonzalez told Chin. “We don’t like to (make) excuses. Obviously, we’ve got some really, really important players — starting, important players — that were (out with) illness or resting, and I think we’ve got a really good spirit and we took a difficult win after two games in 20 hours.”
The Celtics started Nikola Vucevic and Gonzalez in place of Queta and Brown, respectively. It was Vucevic’s first start in a Boston uniform — he came off the bench in the first nine games after his Feb. 5 trade from Chicago — and the third of Gonzalez’s young NBA career.
Boston’s full starting five — which also included White, Sam Hauser and Baylor Scheierman — had not played a second together before Monday night.
Milwaukee vaulted out to a 7-0 lead, but the Celtics responded with a 10-0 run that featured a Hauser 3-pointer and a soaring putback dunk by Gonzalez. Up one when Antetokounmpo checked out for the first time, Boston proceeded to build a double-digit lead against the Bucks’ second unit.
Key to that push were two players who don’t have everyday roles when the Celtics’ rotation is intact: Ron Harper Jr. and Luka Garza. Harper hit a corner three and blocked two shots. Garza, who was pushed to the end of the bench by Vucevic’s arrival, made two shots at the rim and drew a foul on an offensive rebound.
Hauser closed the first quarter by missing a 3-pointer, gathering his own rebound and hitting a quick-trigger midrange jumper as time expired. That highlight-reel bucket put the Celtics up 30-20, and they proceeded to score the first eight points of the second quarter to take an 18-point lead.
It peaked at 22 points during a long-range scoring barrage that saw Gonzalez, Pritchard, and White drain threes on consecutive Celtics possessions. Pritchard bounced back nicely from his Sunday night goose egg, scoring 11 first-half points and creating another 16 through assists. But Boston’s most active difference-maker in the first half was Gonzalez, who sat one rebound shy of his second career double-double at halftime.
Over the first two quarters, the Real Madrid product accounted for three of the Celtics’ six steals and four of their nine offensive rebounds. He became just the fourth player in the last three seasons to record at least 10 points, nine rebounds, three blocks and one steal before halftime, joining Karl-Anthony Towns, James Harden and Victor Wembanyama.
The Celtics went cold as the half wound down, scoring just five points in the final six minutes, and had trouble defending the full-speed Antetokounmpo drives that made up most of Milwaukee’s offense. The Bucks’ unicorn big man scored seven of the first nine points of the second half by himself to cut his team’s deficit to 59-50.
But Boston responded with a 15-0 run filled with more winning plays by Gonzalez. The young wing hit a three, blocked a three, scored a cutting layup off a slick bounce pass from White and drew two offensive fouls, including one on Antetokounmpo beneath the basket. The 6-foot-6 Gonzalez — who guarded Luka Doncic and LeBron James during the Celtics’ Feb. 22 win over the Los Angeles Lakers — also forced Antetokounmpo into a midrange miss with stingy on-ball defense.
Harper halted a 10-0 Bucks response with his second 3-pointer of the game, and the Celtics entered the fourth quarter with a comfortable 83-65 cushion after Pritchard converted a high-arcing 21-footer in the final second of the third.
Boston controlled the final period and finished the game with its three G Leaguers — rookies Amari Williams, Max Shulga and John Tonje — on the floor.
