While offensive firepower has brought a few wins to the Milwaukee Bucks this season, Jason Kidd’s squad got it done with defense Monday night.
Jason always preaches a defense-first mentality, so the Bucks head coach was no doubt pleased when his team locked down for a 102-89 victory over the Detroit Pistons.
“I thought we rebounded the ball. I thought we executed the gameplan,” Kidd said. “But you know it wasn’t always perfect, but the multiple efforts were high and guys were flying around so it was good to see.”
Led by Michael Beasley and Greg Monroe, it was a great first half for the Bucks, as they limited the Pistons to only 29 points.
Monroe and Beasley combined for 48 points, 16 rebounds six assists and six steals.
“I thought Moose was great. He let the game come to him. The ball was touching the paint, guys were finding him and he was finishing. I thought he was great not just scoring the ball, but also finding the open teammates, Jason said. “I think he likes having (Middleton) back, those two have a great relationship on the court. But I thought Moose’s energy in these last games has been off the chart for us.”
Beasley got the start in place of Jabari Parker who will be out for an extended period of time with a torn ACL for the second time in three seasons.
“I think we all know (Beasley) can score the ball so he did his job,” J-Kidd said. “But the big thing for Beas is not just scoring the ball, but getting the defensive rebounds and being able to secure the ball so we can get out and run and I thought he did a great job defensively tonight.”
It was an uncharacteristically quiet night for Giannis Antetokounmpo, who scored only eight points for just his second game outside of double figures in the past month. However, Jason still saw positives from his All-Star, as well as in the way his team responded during its go-to scorer’s off night.
“Yeah I think the nice thing about it is it’s a team. We’re not built around one person. Maybe Giannis didn’t play his best game offensively, but he found other ways to get involved defensively; rebounding, setting guys up, setting screens, letting other guys score the ball, finding open guys, so that’s what All-Stars do,” Kidd said. “That’s what the best player on a team does. I thought our bench was huge. It all starts with our defense. This is another game we played on the defensive end and we got the rebounds that lead to easy baskets, but those guys talking on defense and transition defense helped us win this game.”
While Monroe had a big night against his former team, so did Khris Middleton, who scored 11 points in 18 minutes off the bench. Middleton and Monroe led a bench unit that outscored its Detroit counterpart 49-11.
“We stretched him for 11 straight minutes tonight. We only played him I think under seven in that first half so we had some minutes to burn,” Jason said. “So I asked him after the game how he felt with those 11 minutes, so he felt good so we’ll see how he feels tomorrow.”
The Bucks have now won two games in a row, and it was the first time since Jan. 2 that they held an opponent to under 100 points.
“I thought this happened before this game took place. We had a chance at Indiana to do the same thing, to hold a team under 100, but we came up a little short,” Kidd said. “Tonight we reached that goal and hopefully we can start a new streak. The league is scoring a lot of points. So we’re scoring a lot of points and hopefully we can stop giving up a lot of points.”
Up next the Bucks will travel to Brooklyn to face off against the Nets on Wednesday night.
