Giannis Antetokounmpo returns; Damian Lillard takes over fourth quarter as Bucks beat Nets 115-108
The Milwaukee Bucks bounced back from a tough loss in Boston with 115-108 victory over the Brooklyn Nets on Thursday night at Fiserv Forum.
Giannis Antetokounmpo returned from a two-game absence to score 21 points while Damian Lillard (30 points, 12 assists), Brook Lopez (17 points), Malik Beasley (16) and AJ Green (15) also reached double figures to help the Bucks grind out a win.
Box score: Bucks 115, Nets 108
The Bucks improved to 45-25 in handing the Nets (26-44) their fifth loss in a row. Milwaukee won all three games against Brooklyn this season. Mikal Bridges led Brooklyn with 24 points while Nic Claxton added 22 and Cam Thomas had 21.
Milwaukee hosts Oklahoma City at 6 p.m. Sunday in a matchup of two of the league’s best teams.
Damian Lillard steals a win for Bucks in clutch fourth quarter
Brooklyn guard Cam Thomas was pounding the ball, looking to take Lillard one-on-one and break a 96-96 tie with under four minutes to go in the game – but Lillard poked the ball away as Thomas tried to dance around him and it started a fast break that ended with a three-point play for Antetokounmpo and a 99-96 Milwaukee lead.
“Knowing personnel, I think he’s obviously a scorer, he’s going to attack as a scorer,” Lillard said. “Just watching him play you know a lot of guys we know what direction they want to get to, so on that side of the floor he would probably try to get to his right hand so I didn’t want to jump too far that way because I knew he would’ve went left but I kind of played the right hand and sat down on that and he started just getting downhill and trying to attack. A lot of times I’m able to get my hand on that ball at that angle, so once he started to attack I kind of just took the contact and let him start his attack and then I just slapped at the ball and I was able to get it.”
The Bucks were clinging to a 103-101 lead with 1:41 to go when Lillard swiped the ball from Dennis Smith Jr. and took off down the court. He then dished it to an open Beasley on the wing, and Beasley knocked down the three for a 106-101 advantage and some breathing room with 1:37 to go.
“Obviously we played last night, they had some momentum and it just came down to who’s going to make some plays on offense and defense,” Lillard said. “It was a timely play. (Thomas) was kind of tired a little bit, came up with a steal and as soon as I got the ball I saw everybody sprinting out even though we was tired. I hit Jae, Jae hit Giannis and you get an and-one. Those are the kind of plays that you want to see the team have at the end of the game regardless of who we’re playing or anything else. Just winning plays.”
Lillard then provided the dagger with a pull-up 18-footer with 1:11 left and a three-pointer shortly thereafter to put an exclamation point on his 13-point fourth quarter.
“It all start with Dame,” Antetokounmpo said. “If Dame doesn’t get that stop or he doesn’t get the stop after that, we don’t get no baskets.”
The Bucks improved to 17-2 when Lillard scored 30 or more points and 10-2 when he handed out 10 or more assists. It was his 12th double-double of the season.
Giannis Antetokounmpo returns from injury
After missing two straight games with tendinopathy in his left hamstring, Antetokounmpo returned to the starting lineup for the Bucks and immediately set a tone. He scored nine points in the first quarter, helping the Bucks to a 26-19 lead.
Antetokounmpo looked at times as if he had not played in about a week, going 9 of 19 and making 2 of 4 free throws for his 21 points. He pulled down nine rebounds and had five assists.
“He was great,” Bucks head coach Doc Rivers said. “He was the one that was sitting there with Brooklyn. We used his energy to our (advantage). He was as fresh as a daisy, he was running down the floor. I thought he got a little tired at the end. I used that timeout I think with 2:04 left because of that. I wanted to save that to be honest but I asked him you need one, and he said yes, so I gave him a timeout.”
With 35 minutes against the Nets, Antetokounmpo played in his 65th game and became eligible for postseason awards such as most valuable player, defensive player of the year and all-NBA and all-defensive teams.
“My goal was to play 82,” Antetokounmpo said. “My goal was to play 82. But at the end of the day you have a first goal, second goal, third goal, fourth goal. And when one falls apart you gotta fall back to the second one. There is a bigger goal here to capture. You have to think about the bigger picture.
"Obviously I could play through a little bit of pain through a couple of games, played through a lot of pain against Philly, I didn’t see a reason why I couldn’t play against Phoenix. But, at the end of the day, it’s not smart. It’s not smart for the long run.
"But at the end of the day I cannot think about the long run. The training staff, the physios, all the people in the training room can think about that. My job is to think about now. How can be healthy now. How can I improve now and help my team now, be better.”
The league not only instituted a new minimum game requirement for such honors before the season but required a 20-minute threshold for it to count.
Before sitting out on March 17 against Phoenix and Wednesday against Boston, the 29-year-old Antetokounmpo had only missed three other games in his previous 67.
Antetokounmpo said he first felt the hamstring when the Bucks played the Clippers on March 10 in Los Angeles but played the next two games in Sacramento (March 12) and against Philadelphia (March 14). He warmed up before the game against the Suns before shutting it down and leaving the arena.
He did not travel to Boston on Wednesday, but head coach Doc Rivers said Antetokounmpo got in some light court work at the Sports Science Center.
Giannis, Dennis Schröder, Jae Crowder get technical fouls in third quarter
With 6 minutes 49 seconds left in the third quarter 6-foot-1-inch Nets point guard Dennis Schröder sent Antetokounmpo hard to the court after pushing the 7-footer in the back as he leapt to catch an entry pass from Lopez.
As Antetokounmpo lie prone collecting himself, Jae Crowder pushed Schröder away and had words for him, earning a technical foul. Schröder eventually made his way over to a sitting Antetokounmpo and said something that caused the Bucks star to immediately pop to his feet and knock heads with the guard. Antetokounmpo and Schröder were both assessed technical fouls for that interaction.
“I’ll be honest with you, I don’t really remember,” Antetokounmpo said when asked what Schröder said to cause such a reaction. “I don’t really remember. But, usually when I react like that there’s always a reason. But I don’t remember a reason.”
Earlier in the game Antetokounmpo has fouled Schröder and sent him to the floor, and the guard refused Antetokounmpo’s overture to help him up.
AJ Green’s three-pointers keep Bucks offense moving
After a sluggish start to the game, the Bucks were leading 28-25 a few minutes into the second quarter when Antetokounmpo slung a pass to an open AJ Green from the wing. The second-year guard knocked it down. Then, Green trailed Pat Connaughton as the veteran brought the ball up the court and had no hesitation when Connaughton kicked it back to him from 31 feet. The ball, of course, found nothing but net. Green capped a personal 9-0 run when the Nets left him open to double-team Bobby Portis and Portis fired it to the corner where the sharpshooter knocked down his third straight three-pointer.
“My job is kinda easy – I just gotta find space,” Green said. “And my teammates, whether it’s Dame, Giannis, anybody, they attract so such attention, they’re the ones that really make the plays. I just gotta let it fly and they trust when I shoot it so just try and shoot it with confidence and live with the result.”
In just over a minute of play, the Bucks were suddenly up 37-25.
Lillard and Lopez would then combine for 14 straight points.
Lopez scored 15 points on 6 of 7 shooting and Lillard had 12 points and eight assists in their first half of action while Green had nine. All three of Lopez’s made three-pointers were assisted by Lillard, too.
Then in the third quarter, the Bucks stopped moving the ball and the offense cratered. Bridges outscored the team 13-11 by himself in the first nine minutes and the Nets pulled to within 71-67 when the Bucks called timeout.
“We kind of went back to that old hold the ball, no movement style,” Rivers said. “Which we’re talented enough tog et away with it but it’s not the way you’re gonna win in the long run. And we had to play ourselves through that and I thought we did that.”
Enter Green.
Antetokounmpo found him for a three-pointer and then after a stop, Green dialed up a second one. It was his first miss – but it was short and came right back to him – and he tapped the ball to Patrick Beverley, who fired it to Connaughton who swung it back to Green. He didn’t miss a second time, and suddenly the Bucks were back up 77-67.
“Short-term memory,” Green said. “Just gotta shoot it again.”
5 numbers
5 Offensive rebounds by Brooklyn in the first 2:18 of the fourth quarter, leading to an 8-0 run that cut the Bucks lead to 81-77 and got the Nets off and running. They would eventually go on a 21-6 run to take a 90-87 lead a few minutes later.
9-3 Bucks' record on the second night of a back-to-back this season. Milwaukee is an NBA-best 44-20 in the second games of back-to-backs over the past five seasons.
28-7 Milwaukee’s home record, tied for third-best in the NBA with Oklahoma City and behind Boston and Denver. One loss was on a neutral site, however, as part of the In-Season Tournament in Las Vegas.
202 Three-pointers made on the season by Damian Lillard, making him just the second player in franchise history to make 200 or more in a year. Ray Allen did it twice, with a record 229 in 2001-02 and 202 in 2000-01. Malik Beasley will soon join that group as he has 195 made threes this year. Lillard already holds the single-season mark for three-point attempts with 561.
2016-17 The last time Milwaukee swept a season series over Brooklyn.
Khris Middleton held out for injury management
Bucks forward Khris Middleton played just under 33 minutes against Boston on Wednesday in his second game back from a severe left ankle sprain, and then sat out against the Nets. Before missing 16 games with the ankle sprain, Middleton missed seven games on back-to-backs. He only played consecutive games once, Jan. 3-4.
"Just not worth it," Bucks head coach Doc Rivers said of holding Middleton out. "He could play, if I'm being honest. But why? He just played last night, he's been out all these games, he's been playing great. We just want to keep him where he's at."
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Giannis returns, Damian Lillard takes over as Bucks beat Nets 115-108
