The Milwaukee Bucks led for much of the evening in Sacramento, but Jason Kidd’s squad couldn’t hold off a strong charge led by Rudy Gay.
The Bucks were on top for much of the first half and the game was tied at 73 going into the final frame. But Gay’s 32 points and four three-pointers from the Kings in the fourth quarter sent Milwaukee back on the road with a 111-104 loss.
“The guys fought, we put ourselves in a position to win a game on the road and we just didn’t make a couple of plays coming down the game late on both ends offensively and defensively,” Coach Kidd said. “I thought Rudy made some tough shots. Exactly like the game at home, again, we played three good quarters.”
As Jason said, the result was all too similar to Milwaukee’s meeting with the Kings at the BMO Harris Bradley Center earlier in the season. Gay totaled 36 points in that contest and the Kings hit 10 three pointers and took over late in a 129-118 final.
J-Kidd also lamented his squad’s efforts on the boards. Milwaukee’s initial defense was rock solid last night at Sleep Train Arena. However, the Bucks were unable to finish the play and grab defensive rebounds consistently. The Kings took advantage of their second-chance opportunities, scoring 19 points on 18 offensive boards. While that point total wasn’t crippling, the extra possessions left the Bucks tired at game’s end.
“We talked about that this morning. We’ve got to finish plays,” Jason revealed. “We got them to miss and we just couldn’t get the rebound. There were a lot of rebounds that we had but they came up with them and gave them another possession. Yes, they only had 19 points but the big thing is they got another opportunity to make us work on the defensive end. That’s something that we’ve got to get better at.”
As a result, the Milwaukee defense suffered late. Early in the fourth quarter, the Kings sat at 5-of-21 from three-point range. At that point, the Bucks still held a one-point lead. Shortly thereafter, Marco Belinelli hit a three—and moments later he hit another, and then Omri Casspi it another one, and Rajon Rondo capped off the back-to-back-to-back string to give the Kings a commanding 11-point lead with 2:43 to go.
“Down the stretch we gave up threes, at one point I think they were (6-for-22) and they made three threes in a row,” Jason said. “We got to get better at switching our smalls, and understand who’s shooting the ball and their three-point shooters shot the ball and made them in that stretch. Understand that Belinelli is going to fire it and he did all night. They made two that made it six but I think they made three in a row that took a tight game, if it was not our lead by one, they go up nine, so it just put a lot of pressure on our offense and then on our defense to get stops.”
The Kings had to rely on the deep ball with star big man DeMarcus Cousins sidelined with a sprained left ankle. Rondo was a perfect 4-for-4 from deep to tally 19 points. He also added seven assists. Belinelli dished out six assists and was just behind Rondo with 18 points.
The Bucks got great offensive nights out of all their starters. Center Greg Monroe had a double-double with 24 points and 12 rebounds. Point guard Michael Carter-Williams, small forward Giannis Antetokounmpo, power forward Jabari Parker and shooting guard Khris Middleton all had double-digit point totals with 18, 17, 16 and 14 points respectively.
Unfortunately, they’re logging a bunch of minutes. Each player played between 34 and 37 minutes last night. Power forward John Henson has a sore lower back and shooting guard O.J. Mayo is nursing a sore left hamstring, leaving the Bucks bench thin. Jerryd Bayless and Rashad Vaughn combined to hit five threes for that second unit, but they were the only reserves to score.
“We’re not healthy but there’s no excuses at this level, you’ve got to go with the guys. We believe those guys off the bench can help us,” Jason said. “I thought
[shooting guard Rashad] Vaughn and [point guard Jerryd] Bayless did a really good job and [center] Miles [Plumlee] too even though in the point category he didn’t score. We got to get more guys involved off the bench that can help the starters. The starters are playing a lot of minutes.”NEXT UP
It’s a quick turnaround for the Bucks (20-30), who will travel to the Moda Center at the Rose Quarter in Portland to take on the Trailblazers (23-26) on Tuesday night. Milwaukee will look to improve their 7-22 record on the road and get off of their three-game losing skid.
The game starts at 9 p.m. CT.
