In race for East's No. 1 seed, Celtics cruise past Bucks by 41

MILWAUKEE — The Boston Celtics responded to one of their worst losses of the season with one of their biggest wins.

The Celtics cruised to a 140-99 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks on Thursday night, bouncing back from a disappointing loss in their previous game against the Washington Wizards and pushing the race for the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference into the final week of the season.

Boston now trails Milwaukee by two games in the standings for the top seed in the conference and best record in the NBA, but the Celtics won the season series and own the tiebreaker. Both teams have five games remaining in the regular season, and the Celtics still have hopes of catching the Bucks for the No. 1 seed down the stretch.

«We want to finish out the season strong, see what happens,» Celtics guard Jaylen Brown said.

Meanwhile, the 41-point loss for the Bucks is their second-largest home defeat in franchise history. Milwaukee's starters combined to score 54 points, their fourth-lowest total in a game this season, according to research by ESPN Stats & Information.

«We know what the deal is. It's not hard to understand. If you're not focused, if you don't play hard, they're going to kick our ass,» said Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo, who scored a team-high 24 points. «Simple as that. There's no level of concern. It's a fact. Now you have this in your head and it's up to us to see how we're going to deal with it. Are we going to go and play the same way? If we play the same way, we'll have the same outcome.

»We got to change some stuff. We got to compete. We got to have some pride."

Milwaukee's starters struggled to get anything going, but Boston was carried by a pair of hot shooting performances from its stars on Thursday.

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