Milwaukee Bucks are made of NBA championship mettle

BOSTON — All that remained in the visiting coaches’ locker room as TD Garden closed for the night were two empty bottles of expensive red wine and a stack of paper cups, a fitting reward for the defending NBA champion Milwaukee Bucks, who just submitted a comeback win in ways both exquisite and proletarian.

The Bucks trailed for 23 minutes and 49 seconds in the second half of Game 5 in their Eastern Conference semifinals series against the tough and talented Boston Celtics. They were down 14 points with 10 minutes remaining, and they were losing in the final minute for the fourth time in as many games. Yet, they snatched a 110-107 victory from the jaws of defeat to take a 3-2 series lead home to Milwaukee for Friday’s Game 6.

Because that is what champions do.

“We always give everything we have. I don’t think there’s any time we go back to the locker room after a game and say, ‘We didn’t play hard enough,'” said Antetokounmpo. “[…] The effort from us is always there. Sometimes we might not look like we’re going to win the game, but we just keep playing for 48 minutes.”

The Bucks tore the heart from the Phoenix Suns in Game 5 of the 2021 NBA Finals when Jrue Holiday stole the game-winning attempt from Devin Booker and found Giannis Antetokounmpo on an alley-oop for the ages. Holiday did the same to the Celtics twice in the final eight seconds on Wednesday, blocking Marcus Smart’s layup and picking the Defensive Player of the Year’s pocket to prevent Boston’s last two chances.

“He’s a winner,” said Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer, whose team traded a cache of assets for Holiday in 2020. “Jrue Holiday is a winner. You ask any player in this league, any coach in this league: He’s a winner.”

There was no dunk on the other end to twist the knife this time around. The dagger came a few seconds earlier, when Antetokounmpo’s missed free throw bounced off the hands of both Smart and Jaylen Brown and into those of Bobby Portis, whose put-back bunny gave the Bucks their fist…