In his return to the bench on Sunday, Jason Kidd made a major change to the Milwaukee Bucks starting lineup with designs on helping the Bucks regain their their defensive intensity and get back in the win column. The move invigorated the tenacious Bucks defense, but it didn’t immediately result in a victory.
Coach Kidd slid Jerryd Bayless and O.J. Mayo into the starting lineup while sending Michael Carter-Williams and Jabari Parker to the second unit, and the Bucks responded well defensively to the alteration, limiting the Charlotte Hornets to just 87 points. That total marked the second lowest point output against Milwaukee this season. But the offense didn’t follow suit, and so the effort wasn’t enough to get Milwaukee off the schneid, as they suffered an 87-82 defeat at the hands of the Hornets.
The Bucks have now lost three straight and six-of-seven. But J-Kidd, who returned to Milwaukee sideline on Sunday afternoon after missing Friday’s game due to a one-game league imposed suspension, saw progress in the latest result.
“I thought the lineup switch got us off to a really good start. Defensively, guys were into it. We got a lot of deflections,” Coach Kidd told reporters. “I thought it was one of our best
[games], as a defensive effort. The effort was there, the energy was there. You’ve got to play four quarters and we just came up short in one of them.”
Indeed, a nine-point second quarter by the Bucks offense, in which they were outscored by 14 points was the difference on Sunday and undid the progress made by the Milwaukee starters in the first.
Coach Kidd’s lineup change brought instant results early in the contest. The Bucks shot 52.4 percent from the floor in the opening quarter to open up a lead of as many as 11. Starters Khris Middleton and Giannis Antetokounmpo, who moved up to the three and four slots in the starting lineup respectively, combined for 17 points in the first. The Milwaukee defense was also strong early, creating 10 points off five turnovers to give the Bucks a 28-22 lead after one quarter.
However, the Bucks offense went cold in the second. They sank just 4-of-23 attempts and scored only nine points, all off the hands of two starters: Mayo and Greg Monroe. After the game, Monroe explained that, no matter who is in the starting lineup, the Bucks have to play their game.
“We’ve got to put the ball in the basket,” Monroe told the media. “There are other times in the game where we can take control, and we have to start doing that. No matter who is in, we just have to do what we do. That’s the main thing with us. When you’re a team and trying to do something special, that (the starting lineup) shouldn’t matter.”
Suddenly behind by eight at the break, Monroe and Co. attempted to take control back in the third. Mayo splashed a three to spark the run, and Monroe followed with seven of the team’s next nine points.
Bayless, Mayo and Khris Middleton then went back-to-back-to-back from three-point range to put the Bucks up two, 57-55, punctuating a 20-10 swing to start the quarter. Middleton finished the game with a team-high 19 points while Mayo and Bayless, the two new members of the starting five, turned in 12 and 11 points respectively. Monroe logged his eight double-double of the season with 17 points and 10 boards and the play of the starting group drew praise from J-Kidd after the game.
“They got off to a good start talking. Juice is one of the voices. Him and Bayless, I thought did a really good job. Those are probably the guys that [communicate] the most up to this point,” Jason said. “We played through Moose. Moose responded, being able to find guys, but also being able to make plays and score the ball. I thought he did a really good job on both ends.”
However despite the well-round effort from the Bucks, the Hornets owned the final four minutes of the quarter. Marvin Williams, Jeremy Lamb and Kemba Walker all hit from beyond the arc, and Charlotte took a 65-59 lead into the final frame. Charlotte led through much of the fourth quarter until a key six-point spurt by Bayless, Antetokounmpo and Monroe that tied the game at 80 with 1:04 to go.
But the Hornets got a clutch three-pointer from Nic Batum on the other end to stymie their momentum.
“It was in transition after we’d just scored,” Coach Kidd recalled. “We switched and we kind of relaxed and Batum just pulled up and shot the three. Big shot by a big-time player.”
Batum followed up with a steal of a Middleton pass, which led to a bucket by Walker and a five-point lead for Charlotte. That deficit proved to be insurmountable for Milwaukee, but afterward Jason pointed back to the woeful second frame as the turning point in a close game.
“On the road we put ourselves in a position to win the game. We had the ball to tie it and we just turned it over. It’s something for us to get better at,” Coach Kidd lamented afterwards. When you win three out of four quarters, you tend to win NBA games. But unfortunately that second quarter, we scored nine points. So we’ve got to look at that.”
The Bucks weren’t quite where they hoped to be offensively after the lineup changes, but as Monroe explained after the game, the tweaks shouldn’t change much. Jason has always used a deep rotation, and that will remain a constant no matter which five players are announced as starters.
“Nobody is going to play 48 minutes. Nobody can get caught up in that. Coach is going to make decisions based on what he thinks is best for the team. Everybody is going to play. That’s something he has stated time and time again,” Monroe told reporters. “He’s proven that to be true. So when you’re on the court you just have to do your job and play hard and try to help the team.”
NEXT UP
The Bucks will attempt to end their three-game losing skid Monday night when they host the Denver Nuggets.
Coach Kidd was mum on if the changes made to his starting lineup on Sunday would remain for Monday’s game, but he noted that struggling players like Carter-Williams need only to stay the course to snap out of their funk and help the Bucks get back in gear.
“Every player goes through a struggle through a season,” Jason said. “You just have to keep the course, keep fighting, keep playing hard and it will turn. You can’t give into it.”
Both the Bucks and Nuggets have identical records at 6-11 on the season. The Nuggets edged the Bucks 103-102 in Denver earlier this month. The rematch will tip at 7 p.m. CT from the BMO Harris Bradley Center and will be broadcast on FOX Sports Wisconsin.
