Jason Kidd has been preaching defense all through his team’s rough start, and on Monday night, the Milwaukee Bucks used a key defensive play to grab their first win of the season.
The Bucks were tied with the Brooklyn Nets at 96 with 1:15 to play. And just when his team needed it, Bucks point guard Michael Carter-Williams swiped the ball from Brooklyn shooting guard Bojan Bogdanovic, and the Bucks finished the game on a 7-0 run for the 103-96 victory.
MCW scored six points and had five assists and three steals, none more important than the one on Bogdanovic.
“That was a championship play,” head coach Jason Kidd told reporters. “We had guys getting on the floor. You can see guys are getting better, understanding the process, and it’s going to take some time.”
J-Kidd started two point guards in the game, MCW and Jerryd Bayless. That move paid off as Bayless powered Milwaukee with 26 points. Bayless was on fire from three-point land, shooting 60 percent (6-of-10) from deep and hitting 8-of-15 shots from the field.
“(Bayless) gave us everything he did and it was all huge for us,” Milwaukee center Greg Monroe said. “He made some big shots coming down the stretch.”
The combo guard was big early on, scoring nine points to lead a first unit that shot 57.1 percent to notch a 33-33 tie after a wild first quarter. One of the better plays of the night for Bayless came in the second quarter when point guard Greivis Vasquez set him up for an alley oop that put the Bucks up by seven.
Monroe was instrumental as well. The new Bucks big man went for 23 and 13, including eight points and five boards in the second quarter. Giannis Antetokounmpo had eight of his 21 points in the second, where the Bucks shot 50 percent and forced seven turnovers to take a 59-48 lead into halftime.
Khris Middleton took the reigns in the third, tallying seven of his 17 points were also double-digit scorers for the Bucks. He went 3-for-3 from the field, while the rest of the team went 6-of-14. However, despite shooting 52.9 percent, the Bucks were starting at an 80-80 tie going into the fourth. Brooklyn scored nine points off seven third-quarter turnovers and shot 63.2 percent to even things up.
In the fourth, Milwaukee finally went back to what fueled their resurgence a year ago: defense. The Bucks forced the Nets to shoot worse than they had all game, just 35.3 percent from the floor. The final frame climaxed with that key steal by MCW, and concluded with a definitive 7-0 run.
Afterward, Coach Kidd was happy to see his team learn from its mistakes and improve. The favorable result was welcome as well for the new-look Milwaukee team.
“Coaching is hard no matter what — whether you’re coaching veterans or young guys,” coach Kidd told the media. “Being able to use certain vocabulary with the older guys — they get it and they can go out and execute it. Sometimes with the younger guys, you have to show them on video or walk through it and then have them do it. So you might have to spend a little more time teaching, but that’s fun. That’s why I like being in Milwaukee, to help put these young guys in a position to have success.”
NEXT UP
Coach Kidd’s group will take that momentum into Wednesday’s clash with the Philadelphia 76ers (0-3).
Milwaukee (1-3) is back at home for the contest and will have forward Jabari Parker and guard Tyler Ennis cleared to play.
The Sixers are yet to win this year, falling to the Boston Celtics, Utah Jazz and Cleveland Cavaliers, but they’ve had promising play out of their two young big men: Nerlens Noel and Jahlil Okafor.
The game starts at 7 pm CT.
