It’s the season of giving, and Jason Kidd’s Milwaukee Bucks decided to give their fans an early Christmas present.
J-Kidd’s squad was clicking on all cylinders in a blowout 123-96 victory over the Washington Wizards on Friday night.
“I thought the team, everybody played great,” Coach Kidd said.
The Bucks took the lead at 17-16 midway through the first quarter and never gave it back. The team led 73-58 at halftime, equaling the highest amount of first half points the Bucks have scored all season.
It was an incredible performance from Giannis Antetokounmpo, who finished the game with 39 points, eight rebounds and six assists.
“What was special about tonight for Giannis was we didn’t call his number, the ball found him and he delivered. He did the hard work by putting the ball in the basket,” Kidd said. “Giannis, we could sit here and talk about him all day. He was great. He’s not just settling, he’s getting to the free throw line, he’s putting a lot of pressure on the defense, finishing, not finishing, making plays for his teammates. So, hopefully this is the norm.”
Jabari Parker was the Bucks second leading scorer with 21 points. The budding young forward added eight rebounds.
Jason was especially pleased with the performances of Malcolm Brogdon, Greg Monroe and Mirza Teletovic. These three guys had big impacts off of the bench.
“We’re a deep team. That’s the one thing as a team we have to believe our bench can help us maintain a lead or get a lead, and I thought Malcolm, you look at he’s perfect from the floor; you look at Moose, the minutes that he played for us on both offense and defense, it’s just the list goes on and on,” Jason said. “We talked about Mirza earlier, he didn’t make a shot, but just being a threat, being able to spread the floor but also not letting his offense affect his defense. Just shows he’s a pro, he’s a grownup.”
Brogdon finished the game with 17 points and seven assists. Monroe added 12 points, 11 rebounds and four assists.
Teletovic didn’t score a point in a tough shooting night, but finished the game with a plus-23 rating.
“Make or miss, you look at Mirza’s line, he doesn’t make a shot but he’s (plus-23). That’s pretty incredible,” J-Kidd said. “To not score a point and have that big of an impact of the game, so his defense must have been really good tonight.”
J-Kidd always emphasizes ball movement and scoring in the paint, and the Bucks made their coach happy in that regard. On Friday night, Milwaukee scored 66 points in the paint and had 29 assists.
“Our strength is in the paint. Understanding when the ball touches the paint, make or miss something good happens. That is just something we can hold our head is when someone gets the ball in the paint we get a good look,” Kidd said. “If it’s not in the paint then it’s outside the three point line where we get wide open looks. And then if they’re making them the games becomes really easy or really simple for us.”
The Bucks will play the Wizards again on Monday night after the Christmas break for the third consecutive home-and-home series.
“It didn’t stick tonight. It’s kind of easy or simple when you can show them that when the ball does move good things happen,” Jason said. “But I think again, understanding how well Washington has been playing of late, protect home after these two games against Cleveland and then now have to play them again the day after Christmas. We know it’s going to be tough on the road. They’re going to come with their best and so we’ve got to learn from this game. Understand taking away the three, we didn’t do that early on and when it did it, it kind of helped us, put us in a better seat to take control of the game.”
