Must C’s: Al Horford gets the last laugh over Giannis Antetokoumpo

The 36-year-old scripted the signature moment from Game 4.

Moments make games. Two points are never just two points. And at the start of the third quarter with the Milwaukee Bucks starting to surge, Giannis Antetokounmpo thought he’d put one on Al Horford:

Antetokounmpo would receive a taunting technical for the stare down and Jayson Tatum would hit the free thrpw. But as Al’s sister, Anna, noted, that didn’t discourage her brother; it only fueled him for the next two quarters. The Bucks would build an 11-point lead late into the third quarter with the momentum from that throw down, but Horford and the Celtics

“The way he was looking at me and the way he was going about it really didn’t sit well with me,” Horford said after posting a career-high 30 points in the playoffs. “At that point, something switched with me in the game.”

Horford would score 19 crucial points in the second half, but none louder than the and-1 dunk that completed the comeback, tied the game, and put Antetokounmpo on a poster.

“It was a big time play, a big time moment…Al still has it at this age. He’s still able to get up like he does,” Marcus Smart said. “We weren’t surprised. We were ecstatic for it and we needed it. We felt it. Everybody did. The energy changed once that happened from Al. It got him going and everybody else going,”

From that point, Boston would outscore Milwaukee 25-15 over the next five minutes to steal Game 4 and tie the series 2-2 heading back to Boston.