It was an emotional Thursday night for Jason Kidd, the Milwaukee Bucks and the entire NBA community. Taking on the Chicago Bulls on national television, there was extra meaning to the game due to unfortunate circumstances.
Craig Sager, a veteran NBA sideline reporter for TNT, passed away earlier during the day, sending shockwaves through the league.
The Bucks, as well as a few other teams around the league, wore special warm-up shirts that resembled a crazy Sager suit.
“Just understanding that the setting is national television; it’s unfortunate I don’t know if we all know that all of the games are on TV, so there’s always someone watching, but maybe that’s new to some of us,” Kidd said. “But it was on TNT and with everything that’s going on with TNT and losing a family member like Craig Sager, I thought the guys handled it well by wearing the shirt, by honoring a legend and so just understanding all the commotion that was happening I thought they did a really good job of focusing on the gameplan and being able to execute.”
The Bucks held the lead the entire game, leading by as many as 27 points. The Bulls battled back in the fourth, but J-Kidd’s crew held on to win 108-97.
“Well I think just patience. Understanding the hardest thing in this game and having a lead is being defensive,” Jason said. “You’ve got to stay aggressive, still execute on both ends and I thought we came up with some big blocks and rebounds.”
Milwaukee got prime-time performances from Giannis Antetokounmpo and Jabari Parker. Antetokounmpo scored a game-high 30 points while adding 14 rebounds. Parker wasn’t far behind with 28 points and five rebounds.
“They played great tonight. I thought they didn’t force any shots, everybody touched the ball on the offensive end and we got out and ran after we got the rebounds,” Kidd said. “Jabari sometimes gets unnoticed that he passes the ball well, just as well as Giannis, so I thought everybody was touching the ball, we had open shots and we made them tonight and hopefully we can build on this with a quick turnaround going down to Chicago.”
Coach Kidd was also very pleased with the performance of Matthew Dellavedova, who finished the game just shy of a double-double with nine points and nine assists.
“It’s important to have a security blanket that understands the game, has a very high basketball I.Q., understands the moment, not scared,” Kidd said. “And so to be able to run the pick and roll with Giannis or Jabari and to be able to execute and get the shot that he wants coming down the stretch just shows not that he just has a high basketball I.Q., but he was paying attention when he was playing on that Cleveland team of how to handle the moments and hopefully he can share that with our younger guys.”
Mirza Teletovic was the only other Bucks player to finish the game in double-figures, scoring 13 points off the bench including 3-of-5 from beyond the arc.
“It shows our depth. When someone’s down, someone has to step up and Mirza did that tonight for us,” J-Kidd said. “He was big. He has some shots that he normally has made that he might have missed tonight but we’re going to need that again from him tomorrow night.”
WINDY CITY BLOWOUT
The venue might have changed on Friday night for the Bucks’ home-and-home series with the rival Bulls, but the results stayed the same.
After defeating the Bulls Thursday night at home 108-97, the Bucks defeated the Bulls on the road 95-69 Friday night.
“We had talked about it. We would like to duplicate what we did in Milwaukee,” Jason said. “You know the guys came out with that same intent, we shared the ball, moved guys around and I think rebounding the ball again, our defense put us in a position to win a game on the road against a very talented team.”
The Bulls took a brief lead to start the game, but Milwaukee claimed the lead less than two minutes into the game and never gave it back.
Antetokounmpo was the game’s leading scorer with 22 points. The “Greek Freak” also added 11 assists and seven rebounds.
“I think his confidence is very high right now. I don’t want to say it’s through the roof, but he is very confident with shooting the ball,” Jason said. “He’s worked extremely hard on it and we’ve given him the ball to make decisions and he’s doing a great job. But just everybody touching the ball the last two days of practice, guys have carried over what we’ve worked on on the offensive and defensive end.”
But it wasn’t just Giannis. The Bucks did it with teamwork, finishing the game with 26 assists and 53 rebounds. The Bulls only managed to get 17 assists and 50 rebounds.
“You look at the last two games where the ball moves, you look at they can’t just sit on one person,” Jason said. “They can’t sit on Giannis, you can’t sit on Jabari and you know those two are very unselfish and it becomes contagious and it’s just fun to watch the guys pass the ball.”
Teletovic produced another quality game off the bench for Coach Kidd, finishing with 13 points and eight rebounds in 27 minutes.
“I think Mirza, being the pro that he is, stretching the floor, I thought rebounding the ball was big for us,” J-Kidd said. “I thought he did a great job for us on the boards and we all know he can shoot the three, but he actually took one to the basket and dunked one so it was good to see that he can play inside too.”
It was a homecoming for Jabari Parker, who grew up in Chicago before attending Duke University. Parker finished Friday night with 12 points and seven rebounds on 6-of-8 shooting from the field.
“For any player that they go to their hometown, for Jabari being here in Chicago, it’s always exciting to play in front of family and friends; and the success that he had here in high school, you always want to show that your team can play with the hometown team,” Kidd said. “And for Jabari it probably means something to have a rivalry like that and that will be something that we have, but we’re ways away from that. We’re a young team and Chicago’s the veteran club that has won a lot and hopefully with Jabari on board we can get to that level.”
NEXT UP
After two big wins, the Bucks now have a matchup with Lebron James and the defending champion Cleveland Cavaliers.
Milwaukee has struggled with back-to-back games this season; however, they are now 4-0 during home-and-home matchups. The Bucks will play the Cavs in a back-to-back, home-and-home matchup starting Tuesday night in Milwaukee.
“A lot of times on back-to-backs for us we’ve struggled. After a win just the maturity of moving forward, moving on to the next game and carrying over what we’ve done so that’s when you can use your legs and here in the last three games we’ve been able to try to do that, use our legs, get out and run and shoot the ball,” Kidd said. “I think we’re more built like a baseball team where we need to stay in that city for two or three days. We’ve got a tough schedule, now we move on to the world champs for two and we know we have our hands full.”
