MILWAUKEE – Jayson Tatum had 31 points, 12 rebounds and six assists and the Boston Celtics rallied in the second half to beat the slumping Milwaukee Bucks 113-107 on Sunday afternoon.

Tatum put the Celtics ahead for good by hitting two free throws with 5:51 remaining as Boston erased a nine-point halftime deficit.

Giannis Antetokounmpo scored a season-high 43 points for the Bucks, who lost eight of nine. Antetokounmpo also had 13 rebounds and five assists.

Payton Pritchard added 18, Jrue Holiday and Derrick White each had 15 and Jaylen Brown scored 14 for the Celtics. Brown returned after missing four games with a hip injury.

Bobby Portis scored 15 for Milwaukee.

Takeaways
Celtics: Pritchard, who scored 28 points in a 119-108 win over the Bucks on Oct. 28, kept Boston in the game by scoring 17 points in the first half. Tatum took over from there with 23 points in the second half.
Bucks: Milwaukee took a 16-2 lead in the first 2 1/2 minutes of the game, led the entire first half by at least eight points and went into halftime with a 69-58 lead after the highest-scoring half of the match. the season. But the Bucks scored just 15 points in the third, their lowest total in any quarter this season, and couldn’t recover.

Key moment
The Celtics opened the third quarter with a 12-0 run that culminated in an Al Horford 3-pointer. The Bucks would respond — the second half featured eight ties and seven lead changes — but Boston answered every Milwaukee rally the rest of the way.

Key stat
Milwaukee’s Damian Lillard scored 14 points but shot 1 of 8 from three-point range. He is 1 of 12 from beyond the arc in his last two games.

Next
The Celtics host the Atlanta Hawks on Tuesday, the same day the Bucks host the Toronto Raptors.