Jayson Tatum and the Celtics continue to reign supreme.

The Boston Celtics, until further notice, remain the team to beat for the 2024-25 NBA championship, and on Friday night, they continued to show why this is the case. Thanks to another stellar outing from Jayson Tatum, the Celtics managed to take home a 111-105 victory over a Milwaukee Bucks team that has been surging up the standings as of late and recently got back Khris Middleton from injuries to both ankles.

Tatum continues to be main driving force behind the Celtics’ excellence, and on a night where Boston’s other players weren’t hitting from the field, his 34 points, 10 rebounds, and five assists were instrumental in getting them across the finish line as the victors. And this just goes to show how difficult it is to beat Boston that despite getting a 1-10 shooting night from Derrick White and zero points from Sixth Man of the Year award favorite Payton Pritchard.

“We’re a special team. We won a championship last year and we understand the process that each night is going to look different and we still need to play the right way, our way. Regardless of if we’re hitting shots that night, we gotta be ourselves,” Tatum said, via Jared Weiss of The Athletic.

Putting up championship-level effort on a nightly basis is difficult for any team in the NBA amid the lengthy, 82-game regular season grind. But for the Celtics, the journey is as important as the destination, and them taking every game as a challenge to be better version of themselves is what truly separates them as a “special” team.

It helps that the Celtics have built the perfect roster for today’s NBA, with quality defenders across all positions, nearly all of whom can shoot from beyond the arc. And when mindset matches talent, that team is unstoppable — with Boston proving this to be the case.

Celtics flex might over Bucks with season sweep

The Bucks would contend that they’ll be rather unfortunate to have been swept by the Celtics this regular season, as all three of their matchups have come with Milwaukee still trying to figure it out and integrate returning pieces, such as Khris Middleton. But the Celtics will be very proud of the distance they have created from this Bucks team that was once one of their biggest postseason rivals.

Complementing Jayson Tatum’s 34-point night was Jaylen Brown’s 26-point outing, while Sam Hauser also came up huge off the Celtics bench with 16 points of his own.