The doormat Nets ran away with this one in the fourth quarter.
The Milwaukee Bucks lost convincingly to the Brooklyn Nets 115-102. Cam Thomas and Dennis Schröder led the Nets with 32 and 29 points, respectively, with Thomas erupting in the second half as the Bucks defense softened up. Giannis and Dame led the way for the Bucks with subdued totals of 22 and 21 points.
Game Recap
Fittingly, Nets-era Brook showed up at the beginning of this one, making two shots in the paint. Otherwise, Giannis took over, mostly for worse (turnovers, low flow) than better (early foul trouble for Ben Simmons and the Nets). Dame took over in his absence, more effectively, but the offense overall was sloppy: the Nets pressed and had active hands to the tune of seven Bucks turnovers in the frame. On the other end, Brook looked good inside, but Brooklyn feasted on second-chance points in his absence. The Nets also generated good looks from deep (often from offensive boards), with Cam Johnson splashing home a couple. Brooklyn used a nine-point run to open up a lead, but the Bucks sank a couple threes to only trail 27-25 after one.
Dennis Schröder notwithstanding, the Bucks did better defensively to start the second, highlighted by good one-on-one defense on driving Nets from the likes of Delon Wright and AJ Green (it didn’t last). But the offense was tough going, with points hard to come by. With that in mind, the Bobby Buckets special was called upon, with decent success. Some Dame Flame mixed with Nets Ice nudged the Bucks in front just over midway through the quarter, but it was short-lived, as Schröder drained back-to-back triples (he would finish with eleven in the quarter). Just like the first, the Bucks sank a couple threes to make things more respectable going into the break, but remained down 48-45.
Both teams could score to start the second half, but the Nets moreso, with a balanced effort headed by Schröder and Cam Thomas. Milwaukee was frequently in the washing machine and was out-hustled for rebounds (…and in general). On offense, turnovers continued to plague the Bucks early in the quarter, but they stopped for the rest of the frame. A nice string of sequences from Gary Trent Jr. and deep sharpshooting from Brook helped the Bucks even things up. Giannis, Dame, and Bobby proceeded to power the Bucks offensively for the middle of the quarter, but Noah Clowney (from deep) and Cam Thomas (from everywhere) had answers to keep Brooklyn ahead. The Bucks trailed 83-78 after three.
One team continued scoring to start the fourth, and it wasn’t the Bucks. Various Bucks found Bobby for buckets, but that was about it. Cam Thomas stayed hot, and his teammates corralled yet more offensive rebounds as Brooklyn extended their lead to fourteen (!) with a ten-point run. During that run, Pat Connaughton dared to show actual effort going for a loose ball and was awarded a flagrant foul for his efforts. The Nets were making more banked-in threes than the Bucks were making shots. Doc Rivers emptied the bench with more than three minutes remaining. Chalk it up to tomorrow’s SEGABABA against the Celtics all you want, but Milwaukee wasn’t going to get back into this one (even if their garbage squad halved the 22-point deficit with an eleven-point run—on the back of two steals from AJax, who could put the brakes on others but not himself—MarJon made sure to keep the Nets’ starters on their bench).
Stat That Stood Out
I’ll highlight the Nets putting up seventeen more shots in an attempt to feed three birds with one scone. First, the Bucks shot better than the Nets from the floor (albeit not from deep), which is usually a recipe for success. However/second, the Nets had more offensive rebounds (twelve to seven), which they converted at a healthy clip. And third, the Bucks had more turnovers (eighteen to twelve), especially in the first half. Taken together, it doesn’t tell the full story, but when your opponent takes seventeen more shots, it’ll be an uphill battle.
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