Preview: Boston tries to right ship at NBA-best Bucks

The Boston Celtics have been stumbling against lesser opponents in recent weeks — will they rise to the challenge when facing the NBA’s best Thursday night?

The league-leading Milwaukee Bucks host an up-and-down Boston Celtics trying to keep their season going strong.

After a spate of uninspired play in a busy January schedule brought the high-flying Massachusetts franchise down to earth in recent weeks, Boston hopes the anticipated showdown for two of the East’s top teams inspires the player show up and play hard from tip to buzzer.

At 27-12 and trailing the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference’s third slot by a half game, the Celtics have won but half of their last 10 games. Meanwhile, Milwaukee has only dropped a single contest over the same number of games with an NBA-best 36-6 record.

Boston won the two team’s first clash, a 116-105 win at home on Oct. 30, though the Celtics have lost as many games in December alone as Milwaukee has since.

With star Giannis Antetokounmpo a leading MVP candidate by most accounts, Boston will have its hands full even if shooting guards Donte DiVincenzo (finger) and Wesley Matthews (finger) and point guard Frank Mason III (oblique) all sit, the trio currently questionable for the contest.

Boston might not have All-Star hopeful Jaylen Brown available with a finger sprain of his own sustained late in Wednesday night’s loss to the Detroit Pistons, but it will have swingman Jayson Tatum back, who sat vs. Detroit with right knee soreness.

Second-year center Robert Williams III continues to recuperate from a left hip bone edema, and will not be suiting up as well as a result.

Boston has gotten into a bad habit of dropping games to teams it has been favored against, so perhaps being designated +8.5 spread underdogs by most online sportsbooks will be the whiteboard motivation the team needs to steal a much-needed win.

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