Jayson Tatum, Celtics' Domination of Giannis, Bucks Has Fans Rethinking East Favorite

Thursday night was a scary sight for the rest of the Eastern Conference as the Boston Celtics laid an absolute smackdown on the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks at Fiserv Forum, coming away with a 140-99 win.

It couldn't have come at a better time either as both teams are down to their last handful of games of the regular season. It was also the final regular-season meeting between the two teams, with the Celtics winning the season series 2-1.

That kind of beatdown will certainly be lingering in the back of both teams' minds if they do end up meeting in the postseason.

Perhaps the best sign for Boston that came out of Thursday night was Jayson Tatum's performance, as he dropped 40 points with eight rebounds on 12-of-18 shooting from the field and 8-of-10 from beyond the arc.

It was his best three-point shooting performance of the year as his previous high was 66.7 percent.

Not to be forgotten, Jaylen Brown dropped 30 points of his own as Boston's star duo had their way with Milwaukee's defense all night.

The game was pretty much over at halftime after the Celtics outscored the Bucks 41-21 in the second quarter to take a 28-point lead into the locker room, and they never took their foot off the gas.

Thursday's performance looked much more like the team that was the class of the NBA to start the season and may be exactly what Boston needs to spark another special run in the postseason.

The game had NBA Twitter reevaluating what it thought of both teams heading into the playoffs.

Perhaps even more impressive than what they did on the offensive end of the floor was the job the Celtics did on Giannis Antetokounmpo defensively. They contained one of the league's best players after he scored 38 on Wednesday.

Antetokounmpo finished with just 24 points on 11-of-27 shooting and had to work for everything he got. Nothing came easy as Boston consistently threw two bodies at him and never let the two-time MVP get into any sort of rhythm.

The gap at the top of the East is now down to just two games with five games remaining as the Celtics just took a huge step toward potentially taking the top seed back. They don't have the most difficult matchups down the stretch either.

Aside from a game against the 76ers on April 4, the Jazz, Raptors (twice) and Hawks are the teams left on Boston's schedule, none of which have a winning record.

Meanwhile the Bucks still have games against Philadelphia and Memphis looming.