The Milwaukee Bucks played a strong first half at home against the Los Angeles Clippers, but after halftime, a barrage of long-distance shots buried Jason Kidd’s group.
Led by 31 points from J.J. Redick, the Clippers hit 12 three-pointers, including eight in the second half to beat J-Kidd’s club 109-95.
“They came out and hit us first in that third quarter. Redick got some great looks and he got going and we just couldn’t slow him down or get in his way. You’ve got to give credit to them getting him open,” coach Kidd told the media. “The other side of it is it was still a six-point game and we’re right there and I think we kind of let our offense dictate the outcome of this game. Missing shots, understanding we’ve got to make shots when they present themselves. And, we missed some on the offensive end and we can’t let that carry over to the defensive end.”
Redick got going early, hitting a couple of three pointers. The Clippers were ahead for most of the first quarter, but a late flurry by Michael Carter-Williams bucked that trend. MCW had nine points in the first quarter, all coming in the last two minutes of the frame to give Milwaukee a 26-25 lead after 12 minutes. Carter-Williams had another strong night off the bench, tallying a team-high 20 points and 11 assists.
He had the offense humming with three assists early in the second—the third of which gave Milwaukee an 11-point lead, 40-29. That advantage was its largest of the game, and rookie Rashad Vaughn also helped to build that cushion with an assist to John Henson. The rookie played a prominent role in his 17 minutes on the floor, and aside from some minor mistakes, Jason was happy with his play.
“I thought he was really good tonight,” coach Kidd told the media. “Driving the ball, the one thing that we talked about is low on the clock you’ve got to be able to shoot that, just understand the time the score. For a young player, he made a mistake but it was something that very easily can be corrected. But when he was on the floor, I thought he was good.”
That one miscue came late in the first half after the Clippers had chipped their way back to within one point. Vaughn had the ball in his hands but passed with the shot clock winding down. The Bucks didn’t get an opportunity for a shot and led by just one, 48-47, at halftime.
One of Milwaukee’s weak points in that first half and throughout the game was on the fast break. The Bucks’ transition defense wasn’t at its best, and the Clips held a 19-8 scoring advantage on the break.
“One of the things we’ve got to get better at as a team is when we score the ball, we must lead the league in giving up a basket after a score. We’ve got to be able to read the floor, make that adjustment and we just didn’t do that tonight,” Jason said. “That’s just being young period. Just going through that and understanding the situation of if someone falls after they score, you’ve got to figure it out and wait until that guy’s coming back in the trail situation and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight.”
Greg Monroe and Jabari Parker were strong early in the third quarter to keep the Bucks ahead of the Clippers. Monroe finished with 16 points and 10 rebounds, while Parker had 10 points and five boards on the night.
A hook shot by Monroe put Milwaukee up four, but when Redick responded with a three, things took a turn in favor of L.A. The Clips went on an 11-0 run to take a seven-point lead. That spurt included two trifectas from Redick and another from Chris Paul.
The run spanned less than three minutes, but it was enough to shift the game in favor of the visitors. As Jason opined after the game, those lapses, no matter how brief, were the difference between a win and a loss for Milwaukee.
“We just need to keep playing hard. You know, I think we have a spurt there of playing hard for five or six minutes and then we kind of take two or three minutes off,” J-Kidd told the media. “That’s where we have the drop-off and that’s where we lose control of the game.”
Los Angles led by seven points after three quarters, and a Jordan Crawford three-pointer pushed the lead to 11 midway through the fourth quarter. From there, Jason went to the infamous hack-a-Jordan strategy, trying to put Los Angeles center DeAndre Jordan on the line.
It is a strategy that has drawn ire from some, and Jason admitted that he isn’t a fan of intentionally fouling a poor free-throw shooting player like Jordan—but he was searching for anything to get the Bucks back within range of the Clippers. Unfortunately, the Bucks didn’t execute the plan the way they hoped.
“We looked at it, we talked about it, I’m not a big fan of that. The one thing I thought we could do is do it, we didn’t come up with any rebounds,” Jason explained. “So, it actually backfired in the sense of he didn’t make the free throws, we give up offensive rebounds and we give up seven points out of that situation. So, instead of it working for us, we actually give up two threes out of the situation and so that’s something that we have to do better.”
The first time the Bucks tried to foul Jordan, he rebounded his own miss and found Redick for an open three that made it a 14-point lead. Down the stretch, the Clippers just kept shooting, and generally kept making. They shot 55.6 percent in the fourth quarter, hit three times from beyond the arc and cashed in 11 points from the free throw line to close out the game.
NEXT UP
The Bucks (9-14) travel to the Air Canada Centre to face the Toronto Raptors (14-9) on Friday.
They will face All-Star guard Kyle Lowry who’s leading the Raptors in points 22 and assists per game 6.3. The Raptors are coming off back-to-back wins, including a big 97-94 victory on Wednesday over the San Antonio Spurs. Toronto topped Jason’s squad on just the third game of the season on Nov. 1.
Tipoff for the rematch is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. CT.
