In a crucial final stretch of the season Jason Kidd’s Milwaukee Bucks met with the two best teams in the NBA in just a three-night span, and they simply couldn’t match the two teams that have clinched the No. 1 seeds in their respective conferences.
Saturday night, the Bucks were overrun by the Golden State Warriors’ guard duo of Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson in a 108-95 loss. Two nights later, they fell 101-88 to the Eastern Conference-leading Atlanta Hawks.
“When you play against the best in the East, you have to compete,” Jason said after Monday night’s loss to Atlanta. “We didn’t do that tonight. Offensively and defensively, there was not enough energy. That’s what we’ve built our foundation on, and we just had another no-show tonight.”
TOO MUCH SPLASH
Golden State’s All-Star guard pair earned its “Splash Brothers” nickname Saturday night, combining for 46 points, including nine three-pointers—and the lopsided loss left Coach Kidd disappointed in his team’s effort.
“We were going to try something new,” Jason said jokingly. “We were going to try to not score and see if we could beat them. If we’re going to rely on making shots against the elite teams, we’re going to find ourselves in a lot of games we lose. We were built to play defense and work from defense to offense.”
The Bucks missed 33 of 45 shots in the first half, many of them coming around the rim, and concluded the game with a 37.9 percent clip from the field, including a 2-of-15 performance from behind the arc.
Curry’s 25 and Thompson’s 21 helped the Warriors to shoot 51.2 percent from the field and 48.0 percent from the 3-point line (12-of-25).
“Tonight we got frustrated because we missed some shots that we normally make, and that led to them being able to get threes and layups, and from there they controlled the game,” Jason added.
Despite the shooting woes ,Milwaukee was down just 10 at halftime, 38-48. But in the third quarter, Thompson had 17 points that took the Bucks from down 10 to down 19 entering the fourth-quarter.
Curry sat out nearly 8 minutes of the third quarter after picking up his fourth foul. But he returned in the fourth and sank three three-pointers, the final one giving Golden State a 99-78 lead with 3 minutes, 48 seconds remaining.
Coach Kidd knows how lethal Curry is from behind the arc.
“Anything behind that line, hard or easy, those are good shots for him,” J-Kidd said. “He was in his comfort level and when he’s made a couple threes, anytime he can make you go east-west, he has you on a yo-yo.”
The Bucks shot 26.7% in the first half, their lowest percentage in any half this season.
Khris Middleton had 14, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Zaza Pachulia each had 12 and Michael Carter-Williams and Ersan Ilyasova had eight a piece to round off the starters.
Jared Dudley had 13 off the bench for Milwaukee, who was allotted more playing time because of the lopsided score by the final frame. O.J. Mayo was given a lot of time off the bench as well; he scored eight points and had five assists as he continues to get into full-game shape after coming back from lingering hamstring issues that has left him sidelined for nine games in March.
Despite the 13-point loss on paper, Coach Kidd thought the defense was pretty good—just couldn’t make shots.
“We had some good looks,” Jason said. “They just didn’t go down for us tonight. I thought our defense was pretty good.”
KORVER SPARKS HAWKS
Monday night, it was the sharpshooting from Hawks guard, Kyle Korver, along with dynamic swingman DeMarre Carroll, who hurt the Bucks.
The Hawks held a small five-point lead in the third-quarter, and in a matter of 65 seconds, Korver’s delivered a flurry of offense to toss Milwaukee in a 16-point hole.
Carroll was the leader throughout the night for the Hawks scoring 23 points, eight rebounds and five assists, but it was Korver’s shooting display in just one minute and five seconds that deviated the Hawks from Milwaukee for the night.
He made deep jumpers on four straight possessions—three of them beyond the arc to push what had been a five-point edge to 67-51. That brief stretch accounted for all of his 11 points in the game.
It was probably the toughest two games in a row for the Milwaukee Bucks all season, having to face-off with the Western Conference number one team in Golden State Saturday night, then turning around to face the Eastern Conference’s best team in Atlanta.
The Bucks made one more run, ripping off nine straight points. But Atlanta led 72-64 heading to the fourth and Milwaukee never seriously challenged the rest of the way, despite 18 points from Giannis Antetokounmpo and 17 points and 13 rebounds from Zaza Pachulia.
Coach Kidd addressed his team’s lack of energy afterward. The Bucks haven’t been the same boisterous group they were early in the year due to injuries and a rough schedule, and Jason talked about how they might right the ship before the playoffs.
“You can control it by playing time, that’s one way. For the guys who are playing hard, they’re going to play a lot of minutes. Hopefully we can get back to playing hard as a group — and not just two guys — but everybody playing hard.”
With that said, it was obvious that Coach Kidd thought Jerryd Bayless was playing hard after he recorded 31 minutes off the bench and tallied 14 points and five assists.
It was a necessity for Bayless to lead the bench, as Jared Dudley remained at home instead of taking the brief road trip to Atlanta. Dudley has been having lower back problems, and J-Kidd figured it was better to get some extra rest with the playoffs approaching.
“We would love to have everybody,” J-Kidd said, “but we’re taking the precaution of leaving Duds, with his back, and not putting him on the plane to travel for one game.”
The coach said Dudley would be back at practice Tuesday and hopes he will be able to make a trip to Boston on Friday.
NEXT UP
The Bucks (36-38) now have just eight games remaining on the schedule, all coming against Eastern Conference competition.
They currently sit just 1.5 games ahead of the Miami Heat (34-39) in the seventh slot in the East. Milwaukee is also just three games ahead of the Boston Celtics (33-41) and the Brooklyn Nets (32-40), who are in a virtual tie for eighth.
The next test for Jason’s squad comes against the third seeded Chicago Bulls on Wednesday night. Then on Friday, the Bucks have a meeting with the Celtics, and they’ll have one more game against the Boston squad before all is said and done.
Tipoff for Wednesday night’s tilt is set for 8 p.m. ET from the BMO Harris Bradley Center.
