Closing run by the Mavericks seals deal

The Milwaukee Bucks concluded a six-game, 11-day road trip with a spirited, physical 116-101 loss in Dallas Thursday night at the American Airlines Center.

Milwaukee, without Giannis Antetokounmpo for the third straight game due to left knee soreness, dropped its second straight to fall to 32-19. They finished the trip 3-3.

Dallas (29-22) won for the sixth time in seven games.

The last two games for the Bucks had been decided by a total of two points, and Thursday night was tracking in that direction until the final 5 minutes 31 seconds. The Bucks had led through the first part of the quarter until Kristaps Porziņģis got hot and the Bucks went cold.

The Bucks led at 93-89 with 8:02 left in the game and then Porziņģis scored eight straight points to give the Mavericks a 97-93 advantage. Khris Middleton cut it to 97-95, but the Mavericks outscored the Bucks, 19-8, the rest of the way.

Milwaukee was 38 for 100 from the field on the night and scored just 17 points in the final quarter.

"It's just one of those nights where the ball wasn't falling," Bucks guard Donte DiVincenzo said. "They started making a run and we just couldn't capitalize and get our rhythm going in the fourth quarter."

Middleton (6 for 27), Jrue Holiday (6 for 16) and Bobby Portis (8 for 19) never found a rhythm offensively, and the efforts of Brook Lopez (16 points) and DiVincenzo (22) were not enough to make up for the late, hot shooting of Porziņģis (26 points) and Luka Dončić (27).

The Mavericks also found cracks in the Bucks' rebounding efforts, scoring nine second-chance points and outrebounding them 32-21 in the second half.

Porziņģis led the Mavericks with 17 boards, Dorian Finey-Smith had 10 and

Dončić had nine.

“They shoot a lot of threes and their wings crash,” Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer said. “Finney-Smith, he's got a knack for crashing and getting to the boards. Some of their bigs a little bit too, but he's the one that stands out to me (with 10 rebounds).

"Then we missed a lot of shots, so the overall rebounding flips a little bit, we weren't able to convert at a very high percentage so there's a lot more defensive rebounds for them.”