Joe Mazzulla processed the first half, saw the halftime score and made a rare decision.
The Celtics coach waved the white flag.
With the Celtics trailing by 37 at halftime, Mazzulla pulled his starters. He gave them the rest of the night off. Instead, he started an all-bench lineup of Sam Hauser, Payton Pritchard, Lamar Stevens, Svi Mykhailiuk and Luke Kornet. That unit and the rest of the bench played the rest of the night in the Celtics 135-102 blowout loss to the Bucks in Milwaukee.
“I just thought it was in the best interest of our team,” Mazzulla told reporters. “Just the way the game was going. I thought that was best for everybody.”
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This game should have been a marquee showcase between the East’s top two teams. Instead, with the exception of the outcome counting toward their race for the No. 1 seed, there won’t be much to glean from Thursday night.
It doesn’t totally excuse the effort, but the Celtics weren’t given any favors by the schedule-makers. The Celtics traveled to Milwaukee exhausted on the second night of a back-to-back, a night after they put in maximum effort to beat the West-leading Timberwolves in an overtime thriller. Four Celtics players – Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Derrick White and Jrue Holiday – played at least 40 minutes. Thursday marked their fifth game in seven nights.
Meanwhile, the Bucks hadn’t played since Monday. They were waiting at home for the Celtics and well-rested for their opportunity to exact revenge from their first meeting in Boston back in November, then blasted them in the first half. The Celtics trailed 75-38 at the break, their second-largest halftime deficit in franchise history.
Mazzulla said it was his decision to pull the starters after halftime. Tatum played just 16 minutes, Brown played 18 minutes, as all the starters played 21 minutes or less.
“Just didn’t have it tonight,” Mazzulla told reporters. “It happens from time to time. I thought the intentions were great. Guys gave it all they had for as long as they could, just didn’t go our way on either end of the floor. …
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“It’s tough, right? Like, they want to play. They’re competitors. Again, it was my decision. It wasn’t theirs. But at the end of the day, it’s my responsibility to do what’s best for them and the team, and so obviously if I had said hey you want to go out there, they’re going to do it. It was me. I told them and I felt like that was my responsibility to do it.”
The game was basically over by early in the second quarter. The Celtics’ fatigue was apparent offensively with a 6-for-20 start from the field. It seemed to affect their defense. Still, they hung around in the first quarter. Two dunks from Oshae Brissett made it a 31-23 game with 2:14 remaining in the opening period.
But then it became a laugher.
The Bucks erupted for a 10-0 run – which included eight points from Bobby Portis – over the final two minutes of the first as they took an 18-point lead. The Celtics never recovered, as missed shots piled up, almost in bizarre fashion. The Bucks extended their run to 25-0 with 15 consecutive points to start the second quarter as their lead ballooned to 33.
Portis, who finished with 28 points and 12 rebounds, celebrated with the crowd after hitting a step-back jumper that forced a Celtics timeout early in the second. The Bucks looked like they wanted to make a statement regardless of Boston’s circumstances.
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Brown’s dunk with 7:38 remaining in the second snapped a Celtics scoring drought that lasted six minutes and 34 seconds. But the Bucks extended their lead to 38 as the Celtics continued to struggle mightily on both ends. The C’s went 1-for-16 from 3-point range in the first half.
Mazzulla was not close to being concerned after this drubbing. The circumstances were certainly unique and difficult, but he knows the makeup of his team. He acknowledged he may have handled this situation differently a year ago, but this season, Mazzulla has looked more at the bigger picture.
“You look at the intentions and the character of your team, and a year of experience for myself, and so I trust our character, I trust our team,” Mazzulla said. “You have to look at this and say OK, is this a one-off, is this a trend, is this something you have to be concerned about and when you look at stuff like that, the answer is no, no, and things like this happen. And you can actually use them as opportunities because it gives you perspective, you’re able to take a deep breath, and as I said, we’re not on the side of that very often, and when you are, it’s good to learn from it.”
The Celtics trailed by as much as 43 in the third quarter, and TNT actually changed the game briefly because it was so lopsided. But Mazzulla was happy with how the bench responded as they won the fourth quarter, 32-24.
Mazzulla did not want to use excuses for this loss, even if they were easy to make. He stressed that this was an anomaly, but was eager to see how his team responds when they return home on Saturday to face the Rockets.
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“I don’t want to use the phrase throw in the towel, it’s more about the perspective of your team and where your team is at,” Mazzulla said. “You look at our team over the course of … 38, 39 games, we’ve developed a toughness, a mindset, we’ve done a lot of great things on back to backs, we’ve done a lot of great things underhanded, and tonight just wasn’t our night. I think you have to have the humility to know that from time to time. …
“It will be more important how we respond on Saturday, because these aren’t excuses. This is just the way life is, it’s the way it goes. As I said to the team after, I’ve said it before, it’s more about who we’re going to be on Saturday, who we’re going to be in other tough situations.”
After four seasons in which he emerged as a veteran leader and key bench player for the Red Sox, Rob Refsnyder’s time in Boston is over.
Refsnyder has signed a one-year contract with the Mariners, the club announced. According to a major league source, the deal will pay Refsnyder a base salary of $6.25 million in 2026. It also includes $250,000 in incentives.
Refsnyder, who turns 35 in May, was a journeyman utility player when he signed with the Red Sox as a minor league free agent in December 2021. Over the last four seasons, he found a home in Boston, where he mashed left-handed pitching and became an important clubhouse voice. Along with Trevor Story and Alex Bregman, Refsnyder helped form a core of older position players who helped the Sox navigate treacherous waters in the fallout of the Rafael Devers drama (and subsequent trade) over the summer. On the field, he was plenty productive, too, as he hit .269 with nine homers, 12 doubles and an .838 OPS in 70 games in his limited role in 2025.
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In 309 games over the past four seasons, Refsnyder hit .276 with 27 homers, 119 RBIs, 48 doubles and an .804 OPS while serving as one of the best hitters in baseball against left-handed pitching. In 2025, he posted a .302 average, .560 slugging percentage and .959 OPS against southpaws, pairing with Romy Gonzalez to form a potent pair of right-handed platoon options for Alex Cora. Refsnyder’s .596 slugging percentage against left-handed starters was the fourth-best mark in baseball. Since the start of 2021, Refsnyder ranks third in the majors in on-base percentage against lefties (.405) among players with 300 plate appearances.
Refsnyder expressed strong interest in returning to the Red Sox in 2026 but in recent weeks, the writing has been on the wall for his departure. There aren’t many at-bats to go around in Boston’s crowded outfield/designated hitter picture and recent comments from manager Alex Cora made it harder to see Refsnyder returning in his role. Specifically, the club wants Wilyer Abreu — a platoon player to this point in his career — to get regular starts against lefties in right field, a position where Refsnyder logged 21 starts in 2025. Cora also praised the athleticism of Nate Eaton, who may take over Refsnyder’s role as a versatile, younger and cheaper version in 2026. Eaton had a .673 OPS against lefties in 49 big league plate appearances last year but the Red Sox think there’s more in his right-handed bat. Kristian Campbell is expected to focus on outfield work in spring training, too, further crowding a group that includes Abreu, Roman Anthony, Ceddanne Rafaela, Jarren Duran and potentially Eaton and others.
The Mariners will be Refsnyder’s seventh major league team, joining the Yankees, Blue Jays, Rays and Twins. He had previously signed two deals to remain in Boston, agreeing to avoid arbitration at $1.2 million for 2023, then signing a $1.85 million extension for the 2024 season that included a $2 million option for 2025.
One autumn evening in 2020, the late poet Louise Glück walked into the snug dining room of the Somerville Peruvian restaurant Celeste. Glück found her usual table — the one between the two air conditioning vents — and greeted her usual server, Gonzalo, who waited on her every time she stopped in for ceviche de pescado and an IPA. But this evening was different from the others.
Glück had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature the day before and, amid a wave of public attention, craved the normalcy of enjoying a meal at one of her favorite restaurants. Ahead of Glück’s standing reservation, Celeste’s founders Maria Rondeau and chef JuanMa Calderon had filled the dining room with friends to ensure the new Nobel Laureate could dine in peace. A tabletop bouquet was the only memento marking her achievement.
“All she wanted was to be at Celeste and not think about anything else,” said Rondeau. “At the same time, we were nervous. We’d waited on the same lady every day, but now she was something else. It was a moment of joyous togetherness.”
Glück’s connection to Celeste is uniquely intense — so intense, in fact, that Rondeau and Calderon’s new restaurant opening in Back Bay, Rosa y Marigold, shares a name with Glück’s last published work. It’s also a particularly profound example of how Boston writers have long found comfort, camaraderie and sometimes safety in the city’s bars, cafes and restaurants.
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From the bygone Harvard Square Spanish spot Irunåa where Robert Lowell hosted post-workshop office hours to the old Ground Round off Soldiers Field Road where reporters for The Boston Globe, Boston Magazine and the Boston Phoenix grabbed drinks after media-league softball games, local eateries have literally and figuratively fueled generations of Boston academics, journalists, novelists and poets. So, we asked some of these writers to tell us where they typically go for a coffee, a meal, a conversation, or a moment of peace.
Zarlasht Niaz, novelist
Zarlasht Niaz, author of novel-in-verse “Unfurling,” at the Newsfeed Cafe at the Boston Public Library. (Robin Lubbock/WBUR)
Zarlasht Niaz recently came to Boston from Minneapolis to begin her tenure as the Boston Public Library’s 2025-26 writer-in-residence. The Afghan American writer is managing an online literary journal that centers writing from and about Afghanistan while working on her debut novel-in-verse. Despite her newcomer status, she has already found some gastronomic staples.
Niaz regularly stops into BPL’s Newsfeed Café for arepas from the Somerville-based Venezuelan catering company Carolicious; lattes from a talented, unnamed barista — “When that person’s working, I get really excited,” said Niaz — and live public radio programming from the other NPR affiliate in town.
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She also frequents Anoush’ella’s South Boston location, whose Eastern Mediterranean flavors call to mind home food. “They have these salads with a lot of different herbs and they remind me of the salads I grew up eating,” said Niaz. Turmeric House in Braintree hits similarly. “A perfect cup of chai. A perfect kebab. Yeah, I can’t wait to go back.”
Stephen Greenblatt, literary historian
Author Stephen Greenblatt at Cambridge restaurant Giulia, on Massachusetts Ave. (Robin Lubbock/WBUR)
Having devoted decades to unpacking the work of Renaissance writers, particularly William Shakespeare, it’s no wonder that the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning literary historian Stephen Greenblatt gravitates toward cuisine that could’ve conceivably appeared in “Julius Caesar.”
The Cambridge Italian staple Giulia is his undisputed go-to. “I know Italian food quite well, because we spend quite a lot of time in Rome,” said Greenblatt. “Guilia is unusually creative.” He often orders the pappardelle with wild boar topped with black trumpet mushrooms and parmigiano.
“The chef, Michael Pagliarini, is extremely talented and alert to what really good Italian food is like,” he said.
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Greenblatt also ventures to the eastern edges of the Mediterranean basin when visiting Oleana (which recently received a Michelin Guide recommendation), but his dessert of choice there is decidedly American. “I like Oleana quite a lot, particularly for the wonderful baked Alaska, which is, I think, one of the great desserts that one can get,” said Greenblatt.
Golden, poet and photographer
Golden moved to Boston in 2018 following a celebrated poetry slam guest performance at Haley House in Roxbury and quickly became a fixture within the local literary scene. In the time since, the Black, gender-nonconforming trans writer and photographer has turned out two collections of poetry and images, served as Boston’s 2020-21 artist in residence, and earned a handful of high-profile fellowships. Golden is now relocating to their home state of Virginia to pursue an MFA, but they depart with close community ties, including connections to a couple of keystone Jamaica Plain restaurants.
Galway House, on Centre Street in Jamaica Plain, Boston. (Robin Lubbock/WBUR)
“When I first moved to Boston, I lived on Centre Street by Jackson Square and we would always go to Galway House,” said Golden. “They have affordable, consistent food and a lot of community members I know love going there.”
The Haven, one of the Boston area’s only Scottish spots, is another JP essential for Golden. “I love the Haven Burger — it’s one of my favorites. And I love a good French fry and you can’t go wrong with that there,” Golden said. “I love filling food and food that you can enjoy with friends. That’s where my brain goes when I’m deciding where to eat.”
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Laura Zigman, novelist
The fiction of Laura Zigman often hinges on the heightened emotionalism that comes with navigating life’s highs and lows, beginning with her debut 1997 novel “Animal Husbandry,” which was optioned and became the basis for a romantic comedy starring Ashley Judd and a young Hugh Jackman. But when it comes to going out for a drink or something to eat, Zigman looks to avoid drama at all costs.
Bar Enza, located in the Charles Hotel near Harvard Square, is her ideal venue for meeting friends. “They have really nice wine and cocktails, even though I really don’t drink anymore,” Zigman said. “When you come in for a drink, they’ll give you a velvet banquette that’s beautiful where you can talk and actually hear each other and I just love it.”
The entrance to George Howell Coffee and Lovestruck Books, in Cambridge, Mass. (Robin Lubbock/WBUR)
For coffee, Zigman prefers George Howell Coffee nestled inside the nearby Lovestruck Books. The location itself is freighted with Cambridge cafe history, standing not far from where Howell’s original Coffee Connection once operated between 1975 and 1996 before Starbucks acquired and rebranded it and its 18 local sister stores.
“Coffee Connection was one of those places that I just lived in when I was a teenager,” said Zigman. “They had French roast, French presses, and big barrels of coffee beans with burlap covers. The new George Howell inside Lovestruck is great — it’s cozy, smells like coffee, and it’s pink and red inside.”
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Paul Tremblay, novelist
Author Paul Tremblay, by the Hamilton Restaurant and Bar, near Coolidge Corner in Brookline, Mass. (Robin Lubbock/WBUR)
Brookline Booksmith near Coolidge Corner is a key location for the multi-time Bram Stoker Award-winning horror novelist Paul Tremblay. He visited the shop for the first time early in his writing career to attend a Stewart O’Nan reading and, in the years since, has gone back numerous times to do readings of his own and participate in author events.
Virtually every trip Tremblay makes to Brookline Booksmith goes hand-in-hand with a stop at Hamilton Restaurant and Bar, whose distinctive red awning with a silhouette of its namesake Founding Father casts a shadow on Beacon Street less than a block away.
“Invariably, before the event starts, usually at 7 p.m., all the writers involved and sometimes their family too will meet at Hamilton,” said Tremblay. “It’s such a relaxed vibe — a pub-style place with friendly staff, good food and drink, and, when the weather is warm, a nice outdoor space.”
When Tremblay is nearer to home in the Greater Boston suburbs, he regularly visits Northern Spy, a Canton-based restaurant from the owners of Loyal Nine that serves New England cuisine and operates out of Paul Revere’s historic Rolling Copper Mill.
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“It’s a newer restaurant and it’s got a beautiful interior,” he said. “For people who dare trek outside of Boston and want to meet, it’s a go-to place.”
Megan Marshall, biographer
Biographer Megan Marshall looks across Belmont Street from the window of Praliné French Patisserie’s location in Belmont, Mass. (Robin Lubbock/WBUR)
Megan Marshall arrived in the Boston area in 1973 and has since seen slews of writer-saturated restaurants come and go. She remembers meeting the eminent editor Justin Kaplan at the long-defunct Harvard Square fondue place, Swiss Alps, to get guidance on her biography of Elizabeth, Mary and Sophia Peabody, which eventually earned her the Pulitzer Prize. And she recalls grabbing coffee and cinnamon toast from a drugstore with an old-fashioned soda fountain that once stood on Boylston Street in between research sessions at the Massachusetts Historical Society.
These days, Marshall often finds herself at the Cambridge French patisserie Praliné. “They’re such lovely people there and they speak French, which makes me feel cosmopolitan and their croissants are, I think, the best in the Boston area,” said Marshall.
She also enjoys Praliné’s imported French loose-leaf tea, Mariage Frères. “I get little boxes of it to give as presents. People I know who have spent time in Paris say, ‘Oh, you must be just back from Paris,’ because there’s this impression that you can only get Mariage Frères there,” she said. “But you can get it at Praliné and impress anybody you know who’s Parisian.”
BOSTON (WHDH) – Police are investigating a stabbing in Boston on Sunday afternoon that left a victim with life-threatening injuries.
Officers responding to a reported stabbing in the area of 71 Summer St. around 3:30 p.m. found a victim who was taken to a nearby hospital with injuries that are considered life-threatening, according to Boston police.
No arrests have been made.
No additional information was immediately available.
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This is a developing news story; stay with 7NEWS on-air and online for the latest details.
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