Jrue Holiday has been a steadying force for the NBA-best Celtics this season.
The bar has been set high for a Boston Celtics guard returning to perform in front of once-adoring fans. On New Year’s Eve, Derrick White already was on the bench, his night’s work done in a lopsided Boston victory over San Antonio, when a chant grew louder at the Frost Bank Center.
“White’s an All-Star! [clap, clap, clap-clap-clap],” the Spurs fans clamored, throwing support to a popular player gone since 2020. “White’s an All-Star!”
There’s no telling, though, how the crowd in Milwaukee will react Thursday night when Jrue Holiday makes his return to Fiserv Forum (7:30 ET, TNT). The Celtics are the Bucks’ direct rivals, their biggest threat near the top of the NBA’s Eastern Conference. And the wound of Holiday’s trade days before training camp — in a high-profile gamble to acquire longtime Portland scoring star Damian Lillard — still is fresh.
Oh, there will be a tribute video on the scoreboard during a timeout. But the sting remains. For Holiday, for the fans, and whether they admit it or not, for the Bucks.
The trade has worked out better so far for Boston than for Milwaukee. Anything beyond polite applause might be taken as criticism of Lillard, general manager Jon Horst and even star Giannis Antetokounmpo, who reportedly greenlighted the deal.
And unlike White, who played for the Spurs as they entered an extended down cycle, Holiday was an integral part of the headiest times most current Bucks fans ever have known. A no-brainer All-Defensive pick in his three seasons there, he took the team from contender to champion, sparking the franchise in 2021 to its first NBA title in 50 years.
Now he’s back to pile on a former team gone sideways (1-4 in January). For all his work on and off the court in Milwaukee — he and his wife, Lauren, were generous in the community through their JLH Social Impact Fund — his success now requires some Bucks failure.
Frankly, Holiday isn’t sure how he will react, either. A few days in advance, he had no inkling of the feelings that might swell up in the moment.
“To be really honest, I don’t know yet,” Holiday told NBA.com in Indianapolis Monday night. “Maybe once I’m at the arena, I’ll see how my feelings actually are.
“We played ‘em once already [in Boston Nov. 1]. It was great — we won. Seeing ‘em was cool. And obviously I wish ‘em the best. But I’ve got to get things going over here. Being sent to a team that’s a contender, with the coaching staff we have, the talent, the organization, it’s been great for me.”
Holiday’s impact on the Celtics has been profound. Already a strong defensive unit, they are deeper, more versatile and more advanced with Holiday at that end. Offensively, he was a necessary second or third option with Milwaukee. In Boston, he is one of many.
“I want to talk about Jrue because I think he’s the guy who deserves the most credit on this team,” Boston center Kristaps Porzingis said. “He is the one that sacrifices the most. He’s making everybody better, really being selfless out there. And he is the one going most under the radar.”
Said Holiday: “It was asked, which obviously, everybody here has to sacrifice a little because of how good we are. JT [Jayson Tatum] on a different team is probably getting up more shots. If JB [Jaylen Brown] and JT are ‘on’ one night, it might be the same thing for me and D-White. There might be games where D-White’s on — I might not have the ball as much or I might be the screener.
“Because of how good our team is, it came naturally for me to be a puzzle piece and be where I’m needed and where I fit in.”
Holiday’s doctorate on D has elevated Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla’s chess play in stopping opponents.
“His past teams, his No. 1 priority was guarding the best player all the time,” Mazzulla said. “Here, we have multiple guys who can do that. So he brings that strength at times but also the strength of ambiguity. He can navigate in a gray area … He does a great job making plays and reading help defense while the other guys are intentional about individual defense. It’s about leveraging the strengths of your team.”
Rick Carlisle’s Pacers are the most potent offense in the NBA, averaging 126.6 points per game. They scored 101 when they ran into Boston’s morphing defense Saturday for the first of their two meetings over the weekend.
“One of my favorite players to watch, because he’s total team,” Carlisle said.
Carlisle recalled his assistant, Lloyd Pierce, working on Team USA’s staff at the 2021 Olympics. Holiday joined the squad after its preliminary games had begun, owing to the Bucks’ championship run into late July.
“When he came on board, they became unbeatable,” Carlisle said. “They had lost one or two games before that. They were a team that was doing a lot of switching but he stayed with the matchup on presumably the best player.”
However, Holiday now is less stopper and more quarterback. Fifteen seasons in, at age 33, his mind matters as much to Boston’s defense as his body or feet. Which, he said, is “cool.”
“Kind of expanded my game, expanded my mind a little bit to be able to play off the ball,” Holiday said. “Being able to switch onto guys or just deter guys from coming my way. Even if I’m on a big where they usually have the big come up to set the screen, they’re probably not going to bring me up. It takes away what they want to do.”
Holiday’s presence, though, appears not to be as great as his absence from the Bucks. Boston, after all, was the NBA’s second-ranked defense last season and is No. 2 again. Milwaukee has improved offensively from 15th to 3rd since swapping in Lillard but has plummeted from 4th to 21st defensively.
Its 1-2-3 spots, with Lillard, statuesque Malik Beasley and aging Khris Middleton, put undue pressure on Antetokounmpo and center Brook Lopez to bail them out.
On the night Holiday spoke with NBA.com, Milwaukee had fallen behind Utah by 31 points at halftime. Its defensive decline minus Holiday was real.
“I knew I was missed,” Holiday said. “I know I’m missed in the city — there are people there I had a really good relationship with. But being satisfying? That doesn’t really do anything for me. We’re, what, [29-8]? That feels pretty good. Undefeated at home, barely losing the road, it’s not bad.”
Still, the trade itself hit hard for Holiday and his family.
“For sure,” he said. “Unexpected. Especially on a team where we won and I wanted to win again. With that team, I felt like we went through a lot. With the bulk of the team — it wasn’t just Giannis and Khris, it was Brook, Pat [Connaughton], Bobby [Portis], Thanasis [Antetokounmpo] …”
Does he keep an eye on the Bucks?
“Every once in a while,” Holiday said. “The last game I saw was Milwaukee vs. San Antonio. Usually when it’s on [national] TV, maybe. I tend to take time to watch my brothers play.
“I talk to Khris a little bit,” he said. “I talked to Giannis the other day because he had the comment about ‘Everybody has to be better. The equipment manager has to be better…’ That was funny.”
Expect good times and tears in Milwaukee Thursday night. All around, for a lot of reasons.
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Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA since 1980. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.
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