In his pregame news conference before his Milwaukee Bucks took on the Atlanta Hawks on Sunday evening, head coach Doc Rivers said the smoky voice of Red Auerbach was ringing in his head after his team allowed New York to shoot 18 more shots than Milwaukee in a loss to the Knicks:
Get the ball, don’t give up the ball.
Rivers said the coaching legend gave him that bit of advice daily when he was coaching in Boston regarding allowing turnovers and giving up offensive rebounds.
“We didn’t listen well I guess as a team,” Bucks forward Kyle Kuzma said after a demoralizing 145-124 loss to the Hawks.
Box score: Hawks 145, Bucks 124
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Atlanta scored 26 points on 13 Bucks turnovers and another 17 off 13 offensive rebounds when the starters were in the game.
“It’s deflating,” Rivers said after the game. “It’s disappointing, it’s deflating. Because every possession early on, it’s only one guy, but that guy’s different. It’s just really frustrating. There’s something we’re doing, though, because we were bad at the beginning of the year and then we became a great transition defensive team and there’s something we have to be doing wrong for this to happen. So we have watch film and figure it out, and that’s my job.”
It was the most points the Bucks gave up on the season, and the Hawks took 12 more shots than the Bucks.
“Second chance killed us but besides those two things we just had a lot of defensive breakdowns, let up 80 points in the first half, we got a goal to keep them under 45 in the second (half) and that didn’t work either,” Kuzma added. “We just had a bunch of just miscues. They did a great job though for sure. Definitely want to give them some credit ’cause there’s obviously things we can control but I thought out there they put us in some tough situations on the court that made us think and half the time we didn’t think right.”
It was Milwaukee’s fourth loss in a row. The Bucks have dropped nine of their last 13 since March 5 and fell to 40-34.
As the longest tenured player on the team and its best player, Giannis Antetokounmpo was asked if this was his toughest stretch as a leader in his career, to pull together new players while missing other key figures and get them where they need to go. He said he had a tougher job in his earlier years, but outlined what he is trying to do now.
“Just try to be vocal, man, control what you can control, keep being vocal, keep making the right plays as much as you can, play within your strength and just try to just build confidence in your teammate. That’s all you can do,” Antetokounmpo said. “Which I try to do. I try to talk to my teammate, try to get them involved, talk to them about how much important this stretch is and how important they are to the team and what exactly we’re trying to accomplish and what I need them to do. That’s all. That’s all you can control, man. Then you just gotta go out there and play basketball.”
Rivers also said before the game he made a mistake in not going deeper into his bench vs. the Knicks with so many players unavailable due to injury and suspension, but he maintained an eight-man rotation against the Hawks until the team was down 25 points with 2 minutes, 57 seconds left in the third when Andre Jackson Jr. subbed in.
Jackson remained in the fourth quarter with fellow reserves Porter (28 points, five assists) and Gary Trent Jr. (10 points) and they teamed with Kuzma (25 points) and Brook Lopez to trim a 26-point deficit down to 16 with 6:23 to go in the game.
“The backup quarterback thing, I don’t play that game, you know what I mean?” Rivers said about Jackson. “Like whenever you struggle, everybody (says), ‘you should play him, you should pick him, oh, what about him?’ I just don’t do that game.
“He gave us a lift, I thought, with his energy in the second half so I’m happy with that. But we also had AJ Green out, we have other guys out, and we chose Pat (Connaughton) tonight. It’s tough to get in there and there’s a lot of guys in front of him, but he absolutely gave us a lift tonight and that’s what we need.”
Antetokounmpo returned at that point to try and complete an unlikely comeback, but he attempted just one shot in just three minutes after he returned. Milwaukee worked the deficit down to 12 with 4:40 to go but couldn’t climb all the way back.
“At that point in the game, the only thing that is going to get us back in is energy and each other and we said ‘F’ it man,” said Porter, who scored 20 of his points in the fourth. “All the coverages and everything that we had, all the schemes, it didn’t matter at that point, we just wanted to be gritty, we wanted to pick up 94 feet and we wanted to show toughness. And making it from 26 to 12 shows toughness and it shows we’re gritty, it shows that we can do it, and we can be that team but we just gotta play 48 minutes.”
Antetokounmpo finished with 31 points on 11 of 18 shooting to go with nine rebounds and five assists.
The largest fourth-quarter comeback in NBA history was the Bucks rallying from 28 points down against the Hawks in 1977.
“I think we’re just second-guessing each other right now,” Bucks guard Kevin Porter Jr. said. “We work so hard as a team and individually that we just gotta trust one another with our shots – when we’re open, just shoot ’em. I think we’re just making too many extra dribbles and too many extra passes and that turns into passive aggression and usually passive aggression leads to turnovers. So, we just gotta get back to swinging that ball, everything being unconscious and trusting everyone’s work.”
Atlanta improved to 36-38 as it tries to get a home game for the play-in tournament.
Atlanta was led by rookie Zaccharie Risacher, who scored 36 points. Point guard Trae Young scored 19 points on 16 shots but also handed out 19 assists. Onyeka Okongwu also had a double-double for Atlanta with 13 points and 10 rebounds. Dyson Daniels had 22 points while Georges Niang scored 17 points off the Hawks bench.
Lack of defense for three quarters dooms Bucks
One game after Antetokounmpo said the Bucks would have to be “the toughest, nastiest team out there” they allowed the most points to an opponent in a first half in trailing 82-75 at the break against Atlanta.
“It’s something we definitely, I would say do take pride in defensively and just competing, and we just didn’t do it flat out the past two games,” Kuzma said. “Especially this point in time in the season, down bodies or not, we gotta at least compete and that’s on us. That’s not on nobody else, that’s not on the coaching staff, it’s on us on the court individually taking pride, not letting guys just score and just playing for one another and playing on a string. Gotta do better.”
Milwaukee shot 69% (29-for-42) overall and 50% (8 of 16) from behind the three-point line in the first half, but Atlanta also met little resistance by shooting 57.1% (28-for-49) overall and 45.6% (10 of 22) from deep.
“It’s a first ever, for me, that I think we were shooting 70% at halftime and we were down (seven), it’s almost impossible, you know?” Rivers said after the game. “Yet, we were. You know, I love, love the way we started the game and played offensively. That version of Giannis, he literally was our point guard, scoring, passing machine. He created everything. He didn’t get the assists, but he created everything early on with quick decision, the ball was hopping. But every time we scored they came back and scored.”
The Bucks, incredibly, led just 44-37 after the first quarter despite missing only three shots and shooting 85% overall (17 of 20) and 71.4% (5 of 7) from behind the three-point line.
The Hawks took the lead in part because of a 16-for-20 mark from the free throw line – compared to 9 of 13 for the Bucks. Milwaukee also turned the ball over eight times, leading to 16 Hawks points. Atlanta also pulled down seven offensive rebounds for an additional seven points.
Rivers also pointed to the Bucks’ porous transition defense as a major issue as well while Porter said they didn’t move well enough in rotation.
“Listen, we gotta fix it,” River said “That’s on me. I told our guys before the game that any game we score 120 we should win with our defense. And, obviously I was wrong.”
Individually, the Bucks had no answer for Hawks point guard Trae Young, as Taurean Prince, Ryan Rollins and Gary Trent Jr. all had their turn only to see Young scoot around the court for 16 points and 10 assists in just 19 minutes.
Hawks forward Georges Niang then came off the bench to go 6 of 7 for 17 points in only nine minutes.
Things didn’t get better coming out of halftime, as the Hawks opened the second half on a 13-2 run that saw Rivers call a timeout just 62 seconds into the quarter.
“Bull(expletive), just bull(expletive), honestly,” Kuzma said of the Bucks’ effort, or lack thereof, to open the second half. “We came out and one of the first possessions was a Trae Young pass to (Mouhamed) Gueye. Doc called timeout right after that. That just shows you we were not mentally focused. Couple tip-ins, couple runouts, transition threes, they got whatever they wanted on us tonight. So, hopefully we all watch the film and look how disgusting we were.”
Atlanta took an 18-point lead a little over three minutes gone in the quarter and pushed that advantage to 26 by the start of the fourth quarter.
Bucks, Pistons remain in battle for No. 5 playoff seed
While the Bucks have struggled mightily since March 5, the Pistons have found some success and sprinted into the No. 5 seed. But, Milwaukee was aided by a Detroit loss in Minnesota on Sunday that dropped the Pistons to 42-33.
Pistons head coach JB Bickerstaff and players Ron Holland, Isaiah Stewart and Marcus Sasser were all ejected in the first half for their part in a scuffle between the teams.
Milwaukee owns the head-to-head tiebreaker with Detroit thanks to two early season victories, but the teams play each other on April 11 and 13 to close the regular season.
Detroit has an advantage in those games, however, as the Bucks host New Orleans on April 10 and then must fly to Michigan. Then, the game in Milwaukee is a noon matinee.
Getting out of the sixth spot is key for the Bucks, as they are 0-3 against the third-seeded New York Knicks this season and have not really been in any of the three games. They are 3-1 against the fourth-seeded Pacers, however, with their one loss coming on a fall-away three-pointer by Tyrese Haliburton over Antetokounmpo that resulted in a four-point play and one-point Pacers victory.
5 numbers
- 2-3: Bucks record vs. Atlanta this season, winning the season series. The teams played an additional game in the NBA Cup semifinal in Las Vegas.
- 7-8: Bucks record in the month of March, which is the second month in which they did not post a winning record. They went 1-4 in October. Kevin Porter: “Since I’ve been over here, I feel like we were that (defensive) team the first 10 games and we’ve just been lapse the last 10 games. So, we got eight games to go and we need this momentum and we need to be true to our identity and that’s physicality and that’s defense.”
- 8-8: Bucks record without Damian Lillard this season. They are 2-4 without him since he was first ruled out on March 20 with what was later diagnosed as a blood clot in his right calf.
- 17: Third-quarter points for the Bucks.
- 22: Points in the paint scored by Giannis Antetokounmpo. He came into the game averaging a league-best 19.7.
Is Giannis playing?
Yes, per head coach Doc Rivers. Giannis Antetokounmpo sprained his left foot on March 24 in Phoenix and missed one game with the ailment before returning on Friday to score 30 points in a loss to New York. He began the day probable to play against the Hawks.
What time is the Bucks game?
It’s an earlier tip tonight, beginning at 6 p.m.
What channel is the Bucks game on?
The game will be broadcast locally on FanDuel Sports Network Wisconsin with Lisa Byington, Steve Novak and Melanie Ricks on the call.
Eastern Conference playoff picture
Heading into Sunday’s games, this is what the Eastern Conference playoff bracket looks like:
- No. 1 Cleveland vs. No. 8 Play-in winner
- No. 4 Indiana vs. No. 5 Detroit
- No. 2 Boston vs. No. 7 Play-in winner
- No. 3 New York vs. No. 6 Milwaukee
Eastern Conference standings
Heading into Sunday’s games, this is how the East standings look:
- Cleveland (59-15)
- Boston (55-19)
- New York (46-27)
- Indiana (43-31)
- Detroit (42-32)
- Milwaukee (40-33)
- Orlando (36-39)
- Atlanta (35-38)
- Chicago (33-41)
- Miami (33-41)
Bucks injury report
Bucks starting lineup
- Guards: Ryan Rollins, Taurean Prince
- Forwards: Kyle Kuzma, Giannis Antetokounmpo
- Center: Brook Lopez
Bucks vs. Hawks odds, over/under
Milwaukee is a 4.5-point favorite over Atlanta, and the over/under is set at 235.5 points per BetMGM.
