Because really, that may have been all they needed: someone to look them right in the eyes and belt out "Let's Get Physical."
The Celtics knew what to expect from this game. They were going up against a Milwaukee team that knew how to slow down the tempo and control the game inside. If the Bucks were to win Tuesday night, it was not going to be with dazzling speed or athletic ability, but with pure toughness. These Bucks aren't the biggest, tallest and strongest boys around, but they know how to go for the throat when the situation warrants, and they showed it in this one.
It wasn't until the fourth quarter when tensions really flared. With 8:03 remaining in a close game, Brandon Jennings broke loose and took in a dazzling length-of-the-court pass from Andrew Bogut off a block of a Paul Pierce layup. Jennings took it in stride, went up for the easy bucket, and was pummeled from out of nowhere by a charging Glen Davis. Both players fell to the ground, and when they came back up, Jennings was in Davis' face, raring to go. Davis took the high road, hands in the air, just trying to move along. A double technical was the call, a decision that left both teams up in arms.
"Baby, what I told him is he should have walked away, and then the tech would have been only on Jennings, because he was standing over him," Rivers explained after the game. "It was a clean, hard foul. That's what you do. Get used to it — there'll be more. You've just got to walk away."
You can shy away from situations like that, take the pacifist route and make sure no one gets really hurt. Morally, it's the right thing to do. But for better or for worse, you can't deny that little skirmishes like the one between Davis and Jennings have a way of altering basketball games. The Bucks, who trailed 70-68 at that point with eight minutes left, appeared ready for it. The Celtics? Not so much.
It wasn't long after that moment that Milwaukee went on a 10-0 run to bury the Celtics, as Bogut, Jennings, John Salmons and Ersan Ilyasova ran wild against a Celtics team that looked tired and out of it in the fourth quarter. One team was prepared to up the intensity and play a cutthroat fourth quarter; the other wasn't.
"They made big plays down the stretch and we didn't," Rivers said. "It was an extremely slow-paced game. You could see that from the beginning. And I thought all the little 50-50 plays were going to be the difference in the game — loose balls, offensive rebounds. I thought they won that battle."
Statistically, the Bucks won every battle there was to win. They had 36 points in the paint to the Celtics' 28. They outrebounded Boston with ease, 41-34. The Celtics blocked two shots all night; Bogut alone doubled that, piling up four of Milwaukee's six rejections. Bogut was the deciding factor all night, leading everyone with 25 points and 17 rebounds. The man from Down Under dominated down low.
"He killed us," Rivers said. "He set the table for them all night, they kept getting the ball to him, so yeah, I thought he was the difference."
A game like this has big-picture implications for the Celtics going forward. You never want to infer too much from just one game, but this loss stung for the Celtics, and there will be a nagging concern after this one that a weakness has been exposed with this team.
Against a physical opponent, teams need to be aggressive and make the hustle plays. Teams need to scrap for the loose balls and muscle up for the tough rebounds and points in the paint.
Down the road, the Celtics will run into even stronger, more physical basketball teams that really test their desire to tough it out down the stretch. Take a look at the Eastern Conference landscape, and imagine a playoff scenario where the Celtics run into an elite team in the second round. If the Celtics can't stand up to Bogut, how will they respond to Shaquille O'Neal or Dwight Howard?
Rivers has talked a lot toward the end of this season about finding a consistent flow, trying to get this team to its peak performance by playoff time. But in the playoffs, they will need more than just rhythm. They'll need toughness, grit and muscle.
Sometimes it's best just to walk away. Glen Davis knew that as he stood up from his clash with Brandon Jennings on Tuesday night. But sometimes, you need to stand up and fight. Down the stretch, we'll see if these Celtics have that fight in them.
