On the second night of a back-to-back, coming off a rough 20-point road loss, the Milwaukee Bucks showed character Friday night against the Miami Heat, but it didn’t lead to a win for Jason Kidd’s crew.
One night after falling to the Memphis Grizzlies away from home, the Bucks nearly came back with a win. But thanks to 21 turnovers, Milwaukee came up just short in a 107-103 defeat.
“The guys fought on a back-to-back, not playing as well as we thought we should’ve last night. I thought we responded in a positive way and we can build on this,” Jason said. “But 21 turnovers for us, that’s way too many.”
Against the best defensive team in the Eastern Conference, the Bucks kept the pace up to their liking early on. Milwaukee worked the paint for 20 points, but Miami held a 33-28 lead after one.
And as the game went on, the Bucks began to settle in even further into their rhythm. The team’s overall effort on the night left Jason pleased and impressed with his squad’s character.
“It’s easy to let go of the rope but you’ve seen the character of this group. When we haven’t played well, we come right back and we’re in a positive, we respond,” J-Kidd said. “Last night could have been a hangover, or where we could’ve just carried that over not playing well, but the guys came out and competed. After that first quarter, I thought we started to play at a very high level.”
Milwaukee played strong defense in the second period, holding the Heat to 42.1 percent shooting. Offensively, Greg Monroe got going. The big man went 3-for-5 and registered eight of his 24 points. Parker also went 3-for-5 and turned in six of his 17 points for the night. Jason liked the way Parker worked the post against Dwyane Wade and the Miami defense.
“We would like for him to get in the post. I thought he did a really good job in the post tonight against a smaller guy. But, sometimes when you play against a smaller guy, who has a little bit of the wisdom of understanding that he knows what to get away with or knows how to play a little bit of post defense, but I thought Jabari did a really good job of letting the game come to him,” Jason said. “He had some great looks on the perimeter that just went in and out. I thought he didn’t force anything. Again, this is a game for him to build on. I thought he had a great game tonight.”
Despite the work of Parker and Monroe in the second, the Bucks carried a seven-point deficit, 55-48, into halftime. But after Jason’s adjustments in the locker room, the Bucks came out with their best performance of the game in the third quarter.
Giannis Antetokounmpo led the way with 13 points on a perfect 5-of-5 shooting to go with four assists. The Greek Freak had a spectacular individual night, going 11-of-17 from the floor for a game-high 28 points.
“Giannis was great on both ends,” Coach Kidd said. “We need him to play like that, maybe I need to play him 48 minutes.”
While Antetokounmpo’s scoring boost was huge, his dimes late helped put the Bucks in the lead. He first dished to Miles Plumlee to drop the deficit to just two with 1:22 to go in the third. After swiping the ball from Beno Udrih, he set up rookie Rashad Vaughn on a go-ahead trey on the other end. Vaughn splashed another triple with 5.3 to go, which helped send the Bucks into the fourth with an 83-81 lead.
Vaughn turned in eight points off the bench, as did Plumlee. Plumlee added seven boards, a steal and a block to his totals. Jason praised the play of both young reserves, and he was especially encouraged by Vaughn’s play on the defensive end.
“I thought Miles was great off the bench. He gave us a lift. I thought when he was on the floor, he was a positive. We’re going to need that especially with our bench being shortened a little bit,” coach Kidd told reporters. “I thought Vaughn, again the rookie, was good for us tonight too. He made some big shots and then on the defensive end I thought he got better. We need everybody that’s healthy to participate and those two guys I thought did a really good job.”
It didn’t take long for Miami to reclaim the lead, though. Chris Bosh hit a couple of big shots early in the fourth to put the Heat back on top. The Bucks stayed in it behind a combined 15 points from Giannis and Moose, and a driving dunk by Antetokounmpo tied it at 101 with one minute to go.
But unfortunately, Jason’s squad couldn’t carry it forward to the other end. Wade made a tough play, burying a 19-footer to put Miami back on top for good. Shortly thereafter, the Bucks trailed 104-101 and were looking for a three to tie the game with the clock ticking below 20 seconds. But they ultimately settled for a contested three from Khris Middleton that was off its mark, and Miami corralled the miss and took over from there.
“We were looking to get a three,” Jason explained. “We’ve got to understand that sometimes a three doesn’t come right away, continue to keep playing. I think we’ve learned before that sometimes a three will present itself later in that possession. For Khris, he felt like maybe he had to take that shot but we’re relying on our best guy to shoot it and he shot it. We just didn’t execute or get a cleaner look that’s all.”
But J-Kidd didn’t point to that possession as the team’s downfall. Wade had 10 points in the fourth quarter, including eight points from the free throw line—and Jason saw that go-head play by Wade moments earlier as a key learning point going forward.
“For Miami, Bosh and Wade, you know they’re going to be involved,” J-Kidd said. “Wade made a big shot, a jumper to help them win the game, but understand for our young team is get to your strength. He got to his strength. He’s done this quite a few times in his career. For us, learning going forward, we’ve got to get the ball out of his hand. That’s a lesson learned and now we get ready to go back on the road on the West Coast trip.”
NEXT UP
Milwaukee (20-29) travel to Sleep Train Arena in Sacramento, California to face the Kings (20-27) at 9:00 p.m. CT. The game can be seen on NBATV and Fox Sports Wisconsin.
Milwaukee will now spend three games out west against Sacramento, Portland and Utah. The Bucks lost to the Kings 129-118 earlier in the season, but Sacramento will ride a four-game losing streak into the game. The Kings will also be without star center DeMarcus Cousins, who is sidelined with an ankle injury.
