SAN FRANCISCO – On Sunday night, after a blowout loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder at home, Milwaukee Bucks head coach Doc Rivers said his team had been outmatched physically, and didn’t rise to the challenge of a big game.
On Tuesday, before his Golden State team took on the Bucks at Chase Center, Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said he believed his team would come into the game “pissed off” that they lost the night before to a short-handed Denver team.
The Warriors (40-29), without Stephen Curry, played like their coach expected from the opening tip, but it took Rivers’ team a half of getting knocked up and down the court before the Bucks finally looked like a playoff team. Unfortunately for Milwaukee, they couldn’t maintain their level of energy through to the end in a 104-93 loss.
“You know, I felt like Golden State felt (Monday) – you could see it early, the intensity,” Rivers said after the game. “You could just see it. It was obvious. And every coach in the world talks about it. You can tell ‘em 100 times before the game but they have a lot of pride and one guy’s out and they still think they can win, just like we won games with guys out. Almost more dangerous in some ways.”
They scored 17 points in the second and fourth quarters, and it was a season-low in total points for the Bucks. They have scored fewer than 20 points in three of their last eight quarters and are averaging just 110.4 points per game over their last seven games.
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Milwaukee has lost five of those seven to fall to 38-30 on the year.
“We’ve just got to be better,” Bucks point guard Damian Lillard said. “We’ve got to do things, just be more intentional about what we’re doing offensively. We’ve got to do things with more force, more pace, we’ve got to help each other out more. We’ve got to screen for each other, we’ve got to cut hard, we’ve got to be aggressive, we’ve got to attack. That will really help us.
“I think right now, our offense is not forceful enough, it’s not intentional enough, at least part of our stuff. We’ve got to have pace, we’ve got to hit people, we’ve got to do those things consistently. And right now we’re not doing them well enough to have an effective offense.”
BOX SCORE:Warriors 104, Bucks 93
After rough starts offensively, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Lillard combined to score 11 points in the fourth quarter, but it was not enough for Milwaukee to overcome a 10-point deficit in the final 10 minutes. The Bucks came into the game as the third-worst fourth quarter scoring team in the league at 26.1 points per quarter, and had just 17 on Tuesday.
The Bucks didn’t score in the final four minutes. A play run out of a timeout with just under three minutes to go did not go as planned, which resulted in a missed Gary Trent Jr. three-point attempt down 96-93. The Warriors answered with a made three-pointer of their own to effectively clinch the game.
“We just gotta be more clear with what we’re trying to accomplish,” Antetokounmpo said of their late-game offense. “I feel like at times it’s just me and Dame trying to be aggressive, and everybody plays through that. I feel the last couple of games, dug in the fourth quarter, we kind of like try to be too unselfish instead of try to go downhill and make something happen. That’s what we do, and then if me and him, we’re not aggressive down the stretch, we don’t execute as well. (If) we don’t, then they’re able to crowd us, then you end up taking bad shots, like the one we did with two minutes and 30 seconds left.”
Antetokounmpo scored 20 points on just 5-of-16 shooting. He was 10 of 15 from the free throw line.
“As a team, we just gotta play free,” he said of the team’s offensive issues. “Gotta play free, it’s gotta be like a joy within the game. And stop thinking about negative stuff. Me personally, I just gotta be aggressive. I gotta be aggressive, I gotta be aggressive, I gotta (be) like ‘F what everybody’s talking about,’ and just kinda go downhill and be myself, and enjoy the game again. That’s pretty much it.”
Lillard scored 16 points on 6-of-18 shooting, including a 2-of-9 mark from behind the three-point line.
The Bucks head to Los Angeles to play the Lakers on Thursday on the next leg of their season-long five-game, 10-day road trip.
“We’re in an offensive funk right now and we have to get out of it. We’ll work our way out of it,” Rivers said.
When pressed about what has broken down he added, “It’s everything. We’re missing shots, too. But we’re just – we don’t have the right spacing, the ball’s not moving, we’re not attacking, we’re not getting the paint. I got a whole list. But we gotta do it. And I gotta get them to do it. That’s my job. And it’s on me. It’s my job to get them to do it offensively, and to trust. Now, I think we get in these periods where we just stop trusting (and) we try to do it on our own, and that’s just not going to work.”
Jimmy Butler keys Warriors victory late
Butler has not shot it particularly well (44.8% overall, 22.6% from behind the three-point line) since joining the Warriors but he came into the game against the Bucks averaging 16.8 points, 5.9 assists and 5.5 rebounds per game, as well as 7.3 free throw attempts per contest.
He had not taken more than 17 shots in a game, yet. In fact, Butler took 12 or fewer shots in 11 of his 16 starts.
Butler was 8 of 16 for 23 points on Monday night, and Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said he felt the former all-star determined being more aggressive was necessary. But he didn’t think that just because Stephen Curry was out meant Butler would try to put up an exorbitant number of attempts against the Bucks.
“I think Jimmy’s just one of those players who reads the game, whatever it calls for he responds accordingly,” Kerr said. “It’s one of the reasons he’s a great player. He feels the game, he understands the game. I’m sure with Steph out; and it’s not necessarily looking for his shot as much as it is just attacking and creating stuff. I know that he’s going to be doing that.”
And for the better part of three quarters, Butler was feeling things out.
He then ended the third by drawing a foul on AJ Green from behind the three-point line, his three free throws giving the Warriors a lead.
Butler then drew a foul on Kevin Porter Jr. on a made jumper early in the fourth, and that three-point play gave his team a 81-76 lead. He then hit a stumbling, fading 10-footer to put the Warriors up 83-76. Golden State then added another three-pointer to go back up 86-76 with 10:15 to go in the game.
“I love Jimmy, but he’s gotta make the threes,” Rivers said. “We talked about it before the game – don’t foul him, especially behind the three-point line. We actually showed Denver fouled him behind the three (Monday). We’re breaking too many things that just can’t happen.”
To Kerr’s point, Butler didn’t force the issue in terms of his shots – he took just 13 – but he was 11 for 11 from the free throw line in scoring 24 points and handed out 10 assists, including passes that set up big fourth quarter buckets. He scored nine points in the fourth quarter and handed out four assists.
“I’ve been playing in this league for what, 14-something years now,” Butler said, “so I can tell, I know when I need to get my guys involved. I know when somebody has it going, I know when somebody needs to shoot the ball. I think that’s my job out there, get the ball where it needs to go, when I need to score, be able to do that. When I need to get to the free throw line be able to do that, get some stops, and whatever the team asks for me to do, that’s what I gotta do. I think I’ve got a good feel of that because I’ve been doing it for a while now.”
Kyle Kuzma, Bucks step up in third quarter
The Warriors didn’t appear that interested in guarding Kyle Kuzma, and after a slow start (3-for-8 overall, 2-for-6 from behind the three-point line), the forward got hot in the third quarter and helped key a 19-2 run that saw the Bucks take their first lead of the game at 65-64 with 4 minutes, 59 seconds left in the frame.
Kuzma hit 3 three-pointers in that stretch and was 4 for 7 overall in scoring 11 points in the quarter.
Rivers felt that the Warriors were not giving Kuzma “dare” shots and instead pointed out how he liked how Kuzma moved around the perimeter to find openings – and then his teammates finding him in those spots.
“I know I can shoot the ball,” Kuzma said. “I’m shooting probably my worst season of my career from three but I know I can shoot, and if you want to guard me like that, like, go ahead. I’m not going to be out there not trying to be aggressive and shooting because I’ve made a lot of threes in my career. Just gotta step up and be confident and shoot the same form, same everything.”
On the defensive end, the Bucks forced 10 turnovers and held the Warriors to just 12 points for the first 11 minutes, 19 seconds of the period to take a 76-70 lead.
But in the final 41 seconds, they gave up eight points – including three Butler free throws with eight-tenths of a second left on a foul by Green in front of the Bucks bench. Rivers challenged the call, but it was unsuccessful. That gave the Warriors a 78-76 lead going into the fourth.
“I thought in that third quarter we forced turnovers, we got stops, and we’re able to get out and run at them instead of playing against a set defense,” Lillard said. “We attacked and we just had better quality offense because of that. Sometimes you dig out of the hole on another team’s home floor. You’re down 14,16, whatever it was, you fight back. I thought the end of the quarter, we allowed them to take that lead back and in the fourth quarter, it was a back-and-forth game. We just didn’t do enough things, even down the stretch, well enough.”
Kuzma finished with 22 points on 7-of-16 shooting, including a 5-of-13 mark from behind the three-point line.
Bucks overcome terrible first half
The opening 24 minutes of Tuesday night’s game was one of the worst the Bucks had played all season, and not just because they scored only 17 second quarter points and just 44 in the first half.
After all, those numbers were slightly better than the performance they managed against Oklahoma City (15 second quarter points, 41 in the half) just two days prior at Fiserv Forum.
Beyond the broken offense that saw the undersized and tired Warriors force six turnovers and block five shots, the Bucks looked confused as to what they were doing defensively for the better part of the first quarter as the Warriors jumped out to a 20-8 lead.
“I mean, it was all us,” Kuzma said of the defensive issues early. “It wasn’t anything they were doing special. I just think we didn’t come out and play with a certain type of intensity and energy defensively. I think it’s been a theme the past couple games. Teams are playing really physical with us and those teams aren’t necessarily feeling us on the other end. It’s something we need to just remember before we step out there every night to be aggressive and be the aggressor on defense because when we have, we’ve showed good potential.”
Then, after a timeout, the Bucks came back onto the court with just four players.
Eventually, they were called for a delay of game as Kuzma unwrapped ice from his knees and shed his warmup top. A couple of minutes later, Taurean Prince was called for a technical foul for arguing a foul call. Antetokounmpo, who was blocked twice on drives to the rim, then airballed a pull-up jumper. Lillard was just 1-for-4.
Through all that the Bucks trailed just 32-27 after the first quarter.
But in the second quarter, Milwaukee missed nine of its first 10 shots to fall behind by 13. When Golden State was up by 18 points, the Bucks were 3 of 15 from the floor and 1 for 10 from behind the three-point line.
“I think it was just a few things, things we’re still trying to figure out being a brand new team, brand new dynamic,” Kuzma said. “I think the bigger thing is we can’t let those growing pains on offense affect our defense and I think in that first half that’s why we were down a lot regardless of missing shots. We had them shooting 40% and we were shooting about 40% pretty much the whole night too. I think we did a great job in the second half of just rallying together and finding that competitive spirit collectively but just have to do a better job of just growing and learning together ‘cause every team is going to guard us this way. We need to just continue to find ways to put the ball in the hoop.”
When the teams broke for halftime, the Bucks were down 58-44. Antetokounmpo was 3-for-9 for 10 points while Lillard was 2 for 8 for five points. Guards Kevin Porter Jr., Gary Trent Jr. and Green were a combined 3 for 10 off the bench but were 0 for 5 from behind the three-point line.
Looking for a spark, Rivers turned to Ryan Rollins for six minutes – and Rollins did hand out two assists.
“I just put Ryan in because I thought we needed some defensive energy,” Rivers said. “Ryan, I thought, stood out because he picked the ball up. In the first half, we had no defensive energy. None. And they were doing whatever they wanted, and I thought Ryan started the defensive aggressiveness. Then, I thought from that point on, the third quarter I thought we were really aggressive defensively and then down the stretch we lost guys again like we’ve been doing.”
Meanwhile, the Warriors went deep into their bench on the second night of a back-to-back, and got contributions from bench players Spencer and Trayce Jackson-Davis.
Brandin Podziemski hits big three-pointers in return from injury
The 22-year-old Greenfield native started in place of Curry on Tuesday, though he was limited to around 25 minutes in his return from a five-game absence due to a lower back strain he suffered on March 6.
He hit a massive three-pointer with just over two minutes to go in the game to give the Warriors a 99-93 lead, capping a night where he scored 17 points and had six rebounds. He added another three-pointer late as icing on the cake.
“I could tell I’m not 100% kind of defensively because it’s like a nervous feeling when you come back from something with your back,” he said. “Every movement you make kind of goes through your back. Just being able to trust myself with different movements that I’m accustomed to making is something that I was trying to get. Teammates did a good job of setting me up for two open shots, I didn’t have to move much.”
Prior to that injury, Podziemski had been averaging 14.1 points and 5.7 rebounds per game from Jan. 23-March 4, a stretch where the Warriors went 13-6. Podziemski started 10 of those games, also.
“There was a really good rhythm to the game for him for the last couple weeks before he got hurt – shooting the ball when he’s open, moving it when he’s not,” Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said. “He’s got a great feel for the game. The game seems to move better for us when he’s out there, so that’s what I’m looking for.”
The back injury was the second core injury the St. John’s Northwestern Military Academy alumnus had suffered this season, as he missed a dozen games with an abdominal injury from Dec. 30-Jan. 22.
Bucks begin to manage big man minutes vs. Warriors
With Bobby Portis Jr. having 10 games left on his suspension for violating the league’s anti-drug policy and Jericho Sims now likely out for the rest of the regular season due to thumb surgery, the Bucks opened their road trip on Tuesday with just Brook Lopez and Antetokounmpo as their primary big men.
The last time that happened – when Portis was out for personal reasons from Jan. 25-Feb. 3 – the Bucks went 1-5 and Lopez and Antetokounmpo wore down physically due to a heavier workload.
That stretch also occurred during a Western Conference road trip, and Lopez began it averaging 37 minutes through the first three contests.
“I didn’t like the Brook minutes,” Rivers recalled of that stretch. “I just thought it was too many minutes. And we’re gonna try to avoid that. I’m sure there will be a game or two where he’s high, but it does us no good in the long run for Brook to play 39 minutes a night. It’s just not good for our team health.”
It wasn’t just Lopez feeling the effects, as Antetokounmpo averaged nearly 36 minutes in five of those games – and he once again said that playing a lot of time at the five (or center) position was rough on his body. Coincidentally or not, he strained his left calf on Feb. 5.
The Bucks have been mindful of the minutes for their big men since.
Lopez has averaged 30.6 minutes per game since Feb. 3. And Antetokounmpo just recently advanced out of a minute restriction caused by that calf strain and has averaged 31.1 minutes per game since Feb. 20.
“We’ll figure it out,” Rivers said of making up for the minutes lost from Sims and Portis. “I can’t foresee yet. It’s gonna be each night. We’re gonna have to play small at times. We literally have no choice. And doing this with Brook where we’re trying to manage his minutes doesn’t help. But we’re gonna still try and manage Brook’s minutes and see how it goes.
The team could put Portis on the suspended list and sign a player to a 10-day contract, but Rivers didn’t seem to feel that was a viable alternative.
“We could get another big, but there’s not a lot of those,” Rivers said. “I walked the streets today and I didn’t walk by one 7-footer. Not one.”
The team has 6-9 rookie Tyler Smith on the roster, as well as 6-11 Pete Nance, but neither appeared top of mind for Rivers who said he would more likely move the 6-10 Kuzma to the five position at times.
Lopez played 17 first half minutes vs. the Warriors, but finished with only 25 played. He was 7 of 9 from the field (including 2-for-4 from behind the three-point line) for 16 points. Antetokounmpo logged 34 minutes.
Five numbers
- 3: Quarters out of the last eight that the Bucks have scored fewer than 20 points.
- 11-11: Bucks record vs. teams in the Western Conference.
- 15-2: Warriors record with Jimmy Butler in the lineup.
- 16-17: Bucks record vs. teams with a .500 record or better on the day of the game.
- 14-18: Bucks record on the road. They are currently the only playoff team (a top six seed) in the Eastern Conference with a losing mark on the road, and they have not been .500 away from Fiserv Forum this season since starting the year 1-1 on Oct. 27. They were 18-22 on the road last season. From 2018-23 they were one of the best teams on the road in the NBA, compiling a 123-74 (62.4%) record away from Milwaukee.
Stephen Curry ruled out for Golden State Warriors
The Warriors are holding star point guard Stephen Curry out of the game for rest, as he played 36 minutes on Monday night in a loss to Denver. Curry was just 6-for-21 shooting on the night, scoring 20 points. He also had seven turnovers.
“It’s more of a mental and emotional fatigue than physical — he’s fine physically,” Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said. “His back is fine. He put up a fight last night when I told him I wanted to give him the night off but he understood. When he’s emotionally tired it affects his decision making so he’s been turning it over the last couple games. He’s a little out of sorts. So, we’ve got lots of experience with Steph, we know him well, he just needs a night off once in awhile.”
Is Giannis playing?
Yes. Antetokounmpo began the day as probable to play as he continues to manage soreness in his right knee. The Bucks superstar is gradually seeing his minutes ramp up now that he appears to be totally over a calf strain suffered on Feb. 5. He played nearly 36 minutes against Oklahoma City on March 16, his largest workload since Feb. 2.
What time is the Bucks game?
The game is scheduled to tip off at 9 p.m. CT. Milwaukee is on a five-game trip through the Western Conference, so there will be late starts locally.
What channel are the Bucks on?
The game will be broadcast locally on FanDuel Sports Network Wisconsin with Lisa Byington, Marques Johnson and Melanie Ricks on the call.
Bucks injury report
Bucks starters
- Guards: Damian Lillard, Taurean Prince
- Forwards: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kyle Kuzma
- Center: Brook Lopez
Bucks vs. Warriors odds, over/under
Milwaukee is a 3.5-point favorite over Golden State, with the over/under set at 227.5 points per BetMGM.
