Jrue Holiday on Celtics’ triumph over the Bucks: ‘I love beating them’
Holiday spent three seasons with the Bucks and won a title. There’s no beef, but he loves beating his former team.
Jrue Holiday Photo by Brian Fluharty/Getty Images
Before Jrue Holiday became a Celtic, he was with the Milwaukee Bucks. He spent three seasons with the Bucks and won a title with them in 2021.
Holiday has played for four franchises over his 16-year NBA career. The Bucks and Celtics are the only ones he has championships with.
Holiday made four 3-pointers in the Celtics’ opening night win over the Knicks when Boston tied the NBA record for most threes in a game. The Celtics tied the 2020 Bucks, and Holiday made the most threes of any Bucks player in the record-breaking game.
Holiday said he enjoyed beating his former team on Tuesday night, but didn’t feel any extra emotions suiting up against Milwaukee.
“We already beat them,” Holiday said. “We beat them twice last year. I mean, I won a championship, so I love them all. They’re like my brothers. No ill-will or beef or anything but I love beating them just because who doesn’t love beating people.”
The Celtics got off to a rough start shooting the ball Monday night, missing their first seven shots of the game. Al Horford swatted a shot from Giannis Antetokounmpo that led to a layup from Derrick White for Boston’s first score.
The Celtics, fueled by a game-high 30 points from Jaylen Brown and a franchise-record tying eight threes off the bench from Payton Pritchard, found their shooting strokes eventually.
Holiday scored 21 points on 7-12 shooting. He said that creating chaos on the defensive end helped the Celtics get their offense straightened out.
“It gives us a chance to figure things out,” Holiday said. “Even though we feel we might not be playing well or playing together, I think if you go out there and play hard and create chaos sometimes it will bring you closer and I feel like that’s kind of what happened. Towards the end we stretched the lead.”
The Celtics have won four-straight games to open the season. Holiday said the team’s confidence and calm mindset has been a plus.
“I feel like it’s just in us,” Holiday said of the team’s confidence. “For the most part we are like that personally, maybe in our personal lives. I don’t think we really get shook by anything kind of outside of basketball, so we carry that into basketball. We’re pretty calm and collected.”
