Coming into Wednesday night’s season finale between Jason Kidd’s Milwaukee Bucks and the Indiana Pacers, neither team had too much on the line. The Pacers rested many of their starters with their playoffs series coming up, and Jason played his reserves just as much as his starters to get everyone involved.
In the final game of the season, the Bucks came up short in a 97-92 loss Wednesday at the Bradley Center. Although Giannis Antetokounmpo and Jabari Parker didn’t play as much as usual, they still put on a show, giving Bucks fans another glimpse into the future.
“Tonight being the last game it’s kind of a situation where… you want to get everybody in and you want to make sure no one gets hurt,” Jason said.
In only 29 minutes on the floor, Antetokounmpo finished with the team lead of 19 points and nine rebounds. Parker added 17 points and seven rebounds.
The Bucks fell down big in the first quarter and could never recover. Not even five minutes into the game, Pacers forward Solomon Hill already had made four three-pointers to give his team an 18-7 lead. Hill finished with a game-leading 25 points.
The Bucks were down 37-20 at the end of the first quarter, and Jason gave his reserves more playing time in the second quarter. Damien Inglis scored 10 points off the bench. Rashad Vaughn made the sixth start of his rookie career and played the most minutes (36) of any player on either side of the court.
Milwaukee trailed 62-46 at halftime, but Antetokounmpo and Parker weren’t done yet. One minute into the third quarter, Giannis flushed a missed Parker layup. At the 9:10 mark in the period, Antetokounmpo swung a pass to a cutting Parker, who finished with a slam. With 8:27 left in the third quarter, the lengthy Greek star slashed through the lane for a dunk make it 68-56 in favor of the Pacers.
“
[Parker] came up to me on the bench and he told me — and you know he’s younger than me — and he said we’ve got to work harder and work on our games and next year we’ll see how it goes. I appreciate that,” Antetokounmpo said.
Late in the quarter, Parker added another dunk to cut the Pacers lead to 76-66, and Antetokounmpo answered with yet another slam to drop it to 76-70. The Bucks only trailed 78-70 at the end of the third quarter, but the Pacers pulled away with the win in the fourth quarter.
“I thought that group in the second [half] played with a lot more energy and effort, got the game a little bit more manageable,” Jason said. “They made plays, we just didn’t make shots at the end. I think the positive was no one got hurt. Now we get back to the drawing board so we can see how we can get better for next season.”
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