BOSTON — Jrue Holiday assured that he will not come away with any hard feelings when the Boston Celtics guard enters his first matchup with the Milwaukee Bucks, but insisted that he would have appreciated a warning that he was going to be traded in September by Milwaukee.
“No,” Holiday said matter-of-factly Wednesday morning when asked if he held a grudge against the Bucks. “I think they got what they wanted, so I can’t be mad about that. A warning would have been great. But other than that, I’m in the best place I can be to compete against them, which is for the best team in the East and, hopefully, the best team in the league.”
Holiday, an NBA champion with the Bucks in 2021, was traded to the Portland Trail Blazers days before the start of training camp in a deal that brought Damian Lillard to Milwaukee. Days later, Holiday was sent to the Celtics in another trade for a package that included two first-round picks.
The Celtics and Bucks, the top two teams in the Eastern Conference standings, play the first of four games this season on Wednesday (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN). Holiday spent three seasons with the Bucks after arriving in a trade before the 2020-21 season from the New Orleans Pelicans. He helped the Bucks win their first championship in a half-century in his first year with the franchise, before Milwaukee lost to Boston in the Khris Middleton-less Eastern Conference semifinals in 2022. Then, as the No. 1 seed, the Bucks were surprised last season by losing in five games in the first round to the eventual East champion, Miami Heat.
After years of being on one side of this rivalry, Holiday finds herself on the other team, something Middleton, in particular, admitted would be difficult to get used to.
“It’s going to be weird seeing him in a Celtics uniform, but I guess we’ll just have to get used to it,” Middleton said with a smile after Milwaukee’s shootaround. “But it’s going to be fun to compete against him. We’ve had a lot of great battles together, so I know what he’s like on the Celtics side. I think it should definitely be a fun and interesting matchup.”
While Holiday made it clear that he would have liked to have been told about the possibility of being traded, he said he didn’t target this game above any other on the schedule. Instead, he said, the focus on Wednesday’s matchup is not on him or Lillard, but because the Celtics and Bucks are viewed as two of the NBA’s elite teams.
“It’s not like I’ve marked this on my calendar or anything,” Holiday said. “I think this is a great game because of the two teams that are playing, I think because of the caliber players that are on the floor and all that, so that’s what I would like it to be about, not about playing against me against the Bucks ”.
Boston looks to bounce back from a disappointing loss at Charlotte on Monday night, in which, among several late mistakes, Holiday missed a pair of free throws with 10 seconds left in regulation that could have decided the game. Instead, the Hornets tied the game to send it to overtime and ultimately emerged victorious.
Speaking about his time with the Bucks, Holiday said Milwaukee will “always have a piece of my heart” after winning his first NBA championship there. But he said he was able to turn the page after landing in Boston.
“I think it was pretty much the same once they traded me,” Holiday said, when asked his opinion on the trades now that several weeks have passed. “We know this is a business, and from a business standpoint, I’m in a very good position to be where I want to be, and that’s winning the championship.
“So, again, I’m still happy to be here. None of that has ever changed. So yeah, I wouldn’t say anything changed.”
In addition to Holiday’s matchup against his former team, a late problem came Wednesday morning, when Jayson Tatum was added to Boston’s injury report due to illness. The Celtics said they placed him on questionable status.
2023-11-22 21:10:10
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