While it was another great night for Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo and Jabari Parker, both of whom finished with over 20 points, it was a team effort that helped Jason Kidd’s squad defeat the New Orleans Pelicans 117-113 Tuesday night.
The Bucks trailed after the first quarter 32-29, but exploded in the second quarter for 34 points to grab a nine-point halftime lead.
The Pelicans turned the table in the third quarter, taking a two-point advantage into the final quarter; however, the Bucks came alive in the fourth, outscored the Pelicans by six and made some tremendous defensive plays.
“Just not Giannis, the whole team, everybody participated,” Jason said. “It was key for us. When you look at the team, it was a team effort all the way across the board. Now stats are stats, but you know everybody who played, they played hard and everybody was tied together tonight.”
ROOK LOOKS GOOD
Rookie guard Malcolm Brogdon had a great game for Milwaukee, coming off the bench to score 14 points, four assists and four steals in 24 minutes.
J-Kidd came away impressed with the way his second-round draft pick performed in the win.
“We trust Malcolm, and I think you can see his teammates trust him when he’s on the floor,” Jason said. “So again, he’s going to make some rookie mistakes, but no one panics, he doesn’t panic, he keeps playing, and I think every time he’s on the floor he gets better.”
NEW BUCK BREAKS THROUGH
Another role player who stood out Tuesday night was Tony Snell, who finished with a quiet double-double of 12 points and 10 rebounds.
Snell was recently acquired from the Chicago Bulls in exchange for Michael Carter-Williams, and its Snell’s defensive presence that Jason loves so much, in addition to the solid offensive numbers.
“He loves to play defense. I love Tony, the way he competes. He takes pride in defense and that’s his offense,” Kidd said. “When you look at what he does on the defensive end, he covers guys up, he’s about helping and then on the other end he makes open shots, he’s not afraid to take the shot, every shot he does take looks like it’s going in.”
BUCKS CHALLENGE MVP CANDIDATE
Facing off against the Pelicans, J-Kidd and his crew were faced with the daunting challenge of stopping Anthony Davis, an early consideration for the MVP award.
While Davis finished the game with a monster performance of 35 points, 15 rebounds, three blocks, three steals and two assists; Kidd was relatively pleased with his team’s defensive effort on the superstar. While Davis got his numbers, Jason was happy that his team made the NOLA star earn every bucket.
“They way (Anthony Davis) is playing, he’s going to make shots and he did that tonight. He’s going to put the ball in the basket and we tried to make him work on the other end,” Kidd said. “He is so talented, and again I thought guys made a conscious effort to make sure that there was no easy shot for him tonight, and I thought the guys did a really good job with that.”
NEXT UP
Kidd believes in order to keep winning games his team’s defense will have to improve, but he liked how his team performed in the fourth quarter.
“I thought we executed the pick and roll well down the stretch,” Jason said. “I think defensively, we don’t win if we don’t play any defense, and we made plays late to get the stops and on the road against a very talented team that was hungry for a win, we played well.”
The Bucks will look to continue their winning ways Thursday night when they play another divisional rival, this time going up against the Indiana Pacers.
