MILWAUKEE — A furious 20-0 rally in the final six and a half minutes of Thursday’s game put the Milwaukee Bucks in position to steal a second-straight game with a sizable second-half comeback.
With 23.1 seconds remaining, a challenge from coach Doc Rivers overturned a foul on Damian Lillard and gave the Bucks a chance to beat the Brooklyn Nets on the other end, if they could just score one more time. The Bucks kept it simple. They gave Giannis Antetokounmpo the ball and let Lillard run up the floor and screen for him. The Nets’ physical defense kept Lillard from making contact with Brooklyn center Nic Claxton, but Antetokounmpo still found a sliver of space and got to the rim.
“I wish the layup went in,” Antetokounmpo said. “It’s all a rhythm thing. I missed like three or four right-hand layups, but OK, I don’t make excuse. I missed them. I hope I make them next time.”
After Ziaire Williams made two free throws, the Bucks had a chance to tie the score and force overtime. And with a creative sideline out-of-bounds play that Antetokounmpo credited to European coaching legend Željko Obradović, the Bucks got Lillard a good look at 3, but he missed. The Nets hung on and beat the Bucks 113-110.
Both teams had chances to either win or tie the game late, but it was not the best night for either of Milwaukee’s stars. Antetokounmpo put up 27 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists and made NBA history with his 26th-straight game scoring at least 20 or more points on 50 percent shooting or better, but his 12-of-24 night was tied for his least efficient effort from the field this season. Lillard struggled with 23 points on 6-of-20 shooting and seven assists.
Thursday’s game was the third time the Nets, who are in the middle of what is supposed to be a tanking effort, have beaten the Bucks this season. The Bucks again didn’t seem to be prepared for how the Nets (13-21) planned to play them, despite their tactics being the same all season long.
Heading into the game, the Bucks knew the Nets were going to try to be physical on the ball defensively and try to force them into turnovers and poor execution. And Milwaukee still didn’t come with the right level of focus, detail and execution.
“I think it’s a lot how we approach the game,” Rivers said. “For whatever reason, we haven’t approached the game right against them.
“You gotta show up and be ready to play as a group. And I didn’t think we were tonight. So, give them credit because you know how they’re going to show up. … They just beat us. So they’ve got great confidence. That’s the way this league works.”
While the comeback effort resulting in a win would have been the Bucks’ preferred outcome, Rivers said he didn’t think it would have made him feel much better about how his team played.
“I thought we were going to win the game once we got it down,” Rivers said. “And I wanted to win it, but I wouldn’t have felt any better about it, only that you get to go home and watch a win where you didn’t play well.”
After committing a season-high 23 turnovers in their Dec. 26 loss to the Nets and 18 turnovers (third-most in a game) in an Oct. 27 loss to Brooklyn, the Bucks had 14 turnovers (still in their top half of turnovers in a game this season) on Thursday. Those 14 turnovers, however, led to 27 points for the Nets.
After the game, Antetokounmpo did not have much interest in considering the numbers.
“Let’s not overcomplicate the game,” he said. “We did not play well. They’ve played harder than us in three out of the four games. We did not play smart, and we just got to go back, watch the film and be better. That’s pretty much it.”
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Thursday was the second-straight game in which Antetokounmpo felt as if his team was not locked in to start the game, and that led to an early deficit that continued to grow.
“When you go down 20, that’s when the clock starts for us,” Antetokounmpo said. “That’s when we start to compete. We can’t do that. We cannot put ourselves in the hole and then we just gotta dig out of the hole. It takes too much out of everybody.
“We’ve done it twice now. We did it against Indiana. We did it in this game. Just gotta be more locked in, more focused. I gotta take care of the ball. We gotta all take care of the ball, make smart decisions offensively, defensively, help one another, be in a tandem as a team. We just gotta be better. Gotta be better, for sure.”
The Bucks’ lackluster effort and poor focus to start was the continuation of a worrying trend.
Repeatedly this season, Milwaukee has shown an inability to bring the requisite mental and physical level needed to win games on a nightly basis, and the two most recent examples happened against Brooklyn. After a potentially galvanizing comeback effort Tuesday in Indiana, the Bucks came out flat in Milwaukee two nights later. After a joyous win Dec. 23 in Chicago, they couldn’t find the same level of connection against the Nets on Dec. 26.
With the defending champion Boston Celtics on their side of the bracket, the Bucks were never going to be the favorites to represent the Eastern Conference in the NBA Finals this season, but there was a high level of internal belief that they could be title contenders and compete against the league’s best teams. They have shown that ability at times, but for people to take the Bucks seriously as contenders, they will need to find a far greater level of consistency.
They will need to do a much better job building the “winning habits” Antetokounmpo has spoken about for so many years on a consistent basis. And while the Bucks’ 17-15 start has not been all that convincing, Antetokounmpo still believes this team is capable of regularly building those habits.
“We’ve shown it,” he said. “We started the season 2-8. We came back. We won nine out of 10 games. Went 7-0 in the in-season tournament cup. Went to the final four, beat two very, very good teams. We’ve shown it.
“When we’re locked in, when we play as a team, we can be good. And when we don’t play as a team and we’re not locked in, we can be very bad. So we’ve just got to push ourselves towards the right direction, which is compete, play as a team, play to win, for as many games as we can.”
(Photo: Michael McLoone / Imagn Images)
