Defensive lapses cause another loss
Following a 38-minute effort Friday night in New Orleans,
Jrue Holiday acknowledged that the effort the Milwaukee
Bucks put forth in trying to come back from a 28-point third quarter deficit wasn’t just about winning that game. It also was finding a rhythm and creating a foundation for Saturday night’s
Bucks vs. Trail Blazers
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game in Charlotte.
Though the Bucks’ comeback attempt against the Pelicans fell short, they scored 81 points in the second half on 62% shooting and hit 42% of their three-pointers.
Unfortunately for the Bucks, there was no carryover to the Spectrum Center in a 126-114 loss to the Hornets, a game that featured large momentum swings, a ton of three-point attempts and a 20-point comeback they couldn’t hold.
Milwaukee fell to 4-6 on the road and 11-8 overall.
Charlotte, which came into the game No. 23 in scoring offense and loser of six of its last eight, made 21 three-pointers to improve to 9-11.
It is the third straight game an opponent has hit 20 or more threes on the Bucks.
“There is lots to work on, there’s lots to get better,” Budenholzer said of the team’s three-point defense. “I don’t know how many they started the game with, so they started with a lot. I think we gotta be better coming out of the gate, defend the three-point line better in the first quarter. There have been a lot of first quarters where teams have maybe gotten hot from the very beginning. We just gotta look from start to end, just all of us, how to get better.”
Giannis Antetokounmpo, who came into the game averaging 29.8 points, 12.7 rebounds and 5.5 assists over the last six games, led the Bucks with 34 points, 18 rebounds and nine assists. He also nearly helped the Bucks pull out of a hole that was 51-31 in the second quarter.
“He’s the MVP, two-time MVP,” Bucks guard Pat Connaughton said. “There are times throughout the course of the game he can put us on his back and carry us back from those type of situations. I would prefer that he’s carrying us to a 20-point lead as opposed to coming back from 20, and it’s on us to make sure that we put him in a position to be able to do that.
“Look, he’s going to do what he does, he’s going to get guys the ball, he’s going to attack, know the floor in the halfcourt situation and put pressure on the defense. Whether we’re making or missing shots, that’s part of the game. But on the defensive end, the offensive end, we’ve got to put ourselves in position of making it easier for him and in turn, making it easier for everybody else to have an impact, to make sure that we aren’t down 20 we he starts to put us on his back.”
Despite knocking his right knee off Hornets forward Miles Bridges with seven minutes to go in the game – and wincing on his way to the sideline afterward – Antetokounmpo finished the game but did not score after that moment.
The Fox Sports Wisconsin broadcast of the game showed Antetokounmpo stretching his right leg at the end of the game when Bucks head coach Mike Budenholzer pulled his starters with 1:31 to go after the Hornets took a 126-114 lead.
“We’ll see how he feels in the morning, see how sore he is and just hope for the best,” Budenholzer said.
Antetokounmpo said after the game his knee felt fine.
The Bucks had wholly erased a 20point first-half deficit to take a 111-110 lead, but the Hornets’ young backcourt of Malik Monk and LaMelo Ball flipped that to a 116-111 deficit with about five minutes to go. The two came off the bench to combine for 45 points, including all the points in that key 6-0 run.
“I think we made an adjustment defensively and that helped us get back into the game and once we got back into it, we just couldn’t push it over the top,” Holiday said. “I think our defensive intensity picked up, we started switching, we had to take pride in guarding somebody one-on-one and then once we got close, I mean, at half, I felt like like we had a couple times where we could have just pushed it over the top and we didn’t get to it.”
At that point the Bucks offense had slipped into a funk, going three minutes without a basket until a Pat Connaughton three-pointer made it 116-114 with 3:24 to go.
Milwaukee didn’t score again. Connaughton’s three was their lone field goal over the final 7:31 of the game, with Antetokounmpo adding three free throws in that time.
That fact had Antetokounmpo shake his head post game.
“(Saturday), we turned the ball over, we didn’t get easy looks, we didn’t get wide open looks, so we gotta do better,” he said. “We gotta figure out how we can take care of the ball, not be as sloppy, how can we find people on the court and what our go-to plays are.”
Ball, the No. 3 pick in the draft, scored 27 points and had nine assists. His late energy was a factor in the game as the Bucks looked tired after trying to rally from consecutive 20-point deficits. Monk had 18 points and Gordon Hayward added 27 for Charlotte.
Antetokounmpo was a force in the third quarter, as he had a hand in 17 Bucks points, which saw his team take a 92-88 lead with two minutes to go. Charlotte managed to re-take the lead at 97-94 in the quarter’s final moments, however, thanks to seven straight points from Monk and Ball.
The Bucks began the game with a 10-0 run, but then saw the Hornets outscore them 38-21 the rest of the first quarter by hitting 8 three-pointers and shooting 60%. Charlotte continued burying threes at the start of the second quarter and used a 12-0 run to push its lead to 51-31 just about two minutes into the quarter.
Antetokounmpo had enough of that and scored nine straight points for the Bucks to spark the offense, which had gone nearly 21⁄2 minutes without scoring to begin the second quarter.
Milwaukee didn’t really get back into the game until the defense kicked in, however. Beginning with a Connaughton three-pointer at the 5:38 mark the Bucks went on a 22-9 run to get back in the game, trailing 68-64.
Antetokounmpo scored 20 points and had 10 rebounds in the first half while Holiday added 16 points. Middleton scored 10.
The Hornets finished the half shooting 52% from beyond the three-point line (13 for 25) and were led by Hayward (15 points), Terry Rozier (12), Monk (11) and Ball (nine points, six assists). Rozier, the Hornets’ second-leading scorer, was lost for the game however at the end of the first half when he sprained his right ankle.