For the second straight night, Jason Kidd’s Milwaukee Bucks were in contention for a key Eastern Conference win, but for the second straight night, they fell just short.
After falling to the Hawks last night, the Bucks were edged 110-105 by the Washington Wizards.
“You look at the six-minute mark in last night’s game and you look at the six minute or five-minute mark tonight where we came up with empty possessions and we couldn’t get stops,” Kidd said. “It was just like last night.”
The Wizards went on an 11-0 run to go ahead 106-100 with just 20 seconds left in the game. The Bucks made it interesting with a Giannis Antetokounmpo field goal and Mirza Teletovic three-pointer, but the Wizards capitalized on their free throws and sealed the deal.
“We’re playing NBA teams. Anybody can be beaten on any given night. Nothing is going to be given to us, we have to earn it,” Jason said. “We didn’t earn it tonight and we didn’t earn it last night, so for us to close games we have to have that killer mentality and the last two nights we haven’t.”
Teletovic had a great game off the bench for Milwaukee, finishing with 25 points on 8-of-12 shooting, including 5-of-6 from beyond the arc.
“I told him tonight he was going to play and he gave us a big lift off the bench; he was great. In that case someone has to sit, and Jabari was the guy who had to sit, (Beasley) had to sit,” J-Kidd said. “Mirza was going and we had a lead there that we let get away from us but it’s something that we can look at tape tomorrow, as a team we could probably look at the last six minutes of both games and see how we can get better.”
Rookie guard Malcolm Brogdon also had a nice performance, coming off the bench to score 11 points in 20 minutes.
“Malcolm was great, he’s been great for us all season. Taking control of that second group, running that second group and there in that fourth quarter they set the table and got us that lead. The ball movement was great, the defense was great and we just couldn’t close the door.”
Antetokounmpo had 28 points, 13 rebounds and seven assists, but also contributed seven of the team’s 20 turnovers.
“You can’t turn the ball over late. We understand that, we’ve seen that in games where we’ve had the lead or we’ve given up the lead because of turnovers,” Kidd said. “I think we had 20 turnovers tonight that lead to a lot of points. We turned the ball over, we shot a lot of threes there in that five minute span. Our strength is the paint, we’ve got to get back to the paint and work from the inside-out.”
John Wall was a key factor for the entire game, but especially in those final five minutes, where he recorded eight of his 24 points and all four of his rebounds.
“Yeah he’s pretty good,” Jason said. “Their best player had the ball in his hands and he made plays. If it wasn’t getting to the basket or free-throw line, it was finding guys. Again, we had a chance to win on the road and we come up short.”
NEXT UP
The Bucks continue their road trip on Monday night north of the border against the Toronto Raptors.
