Lately it’s been Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton carrying the scoring load for Jason Kidd’s Milwaukee Bucks; however, on Tuesday night, it was Tony Snell who led the charge.
The Bucks got off to a strong start in the first half, leading 72-50, which helped them push past the Charlotte Hornets for an enormous 118-108 victory in the Eastern Conference playoff seeding race.
“I thought the guys came in with the right mindset to be aggressive on the road,” Bucks head coach Jason Kidd said. “Knowing what’s at stake, we carried around from shootaround and yesterday’s practice, I thought the focus was at a very high level. And I thought the ball movement, but our defense got us going early and I thought the guys shared the ball and it was a team effort.”
Snell finished the game with 26 points on 10-of-14 shooting, earning some praise from Coach Kidd after the contest.
“I thought Tony’s reason, being able to drive the ball and then that set up him being able to tee up the next one. I thought the basketball I.Q, the plays that he made tonight on both ends were big for us,” Jason said. “We had a lot of open shots there in that second half that we didn’t knock down. We can’t live or die by the three, but I thought our defense, again, being able to slow down a very talented Charlotte team put us in a position to win on the road.”
While the Bucks have now won 12 of their last 15 games, they were coming off a pretty tough loss to the Chicago Bulls. It was a game that the team looked tired and emotionless, but J-Kidd’s squad came through with a gritty late-season victory.
“We looked fresh. We looked like we could move,” Kidd said. I thought in Chicago we could have been just a slight tired, fatigue or we exhaled and it’s hard to win on the road against a very good team like Charlotte. But I thought the guys stayed the course for 40 minutes. Relying on our defense and then the ball moving on the offensive end was great.”
For game 74, the Bucks will travel to Boston to square off against the Celtics on Wednesday night.
