MIAMI – Milwaukee’s losing streak reached six games following a tough 106-103 loss to Miami at the Kaseya Center on Nov. 26. It is the fourth straight loss with star Giannis Antetokounmpo sidelined with a strained left adductor muscle.
The Bucks fell to 8-11 while the Heat improved to 13-6 by winning its sixth straight.
“I think we showed a lot tonight,” Bucks center Myles Turner. “Personally, I think this is the best we’ve competed the past five, six games, whatever at it might be.
“Obviously it wasn’t the result that we wanted but the competition level was there. And that’s going to have to be our calling card, our identity night in and night out whether Giannis plays or he doesn’t, is just out-competing teams.
“It’s a formula now in this league. Guys aren’t just having a whole bunch of all-stars on a team and loading up. You have to have guys that are out there with the same mentality and just being dogs out there. That’s really what this league has evolved into.”
But as has often been the case during the losing streak, the Bucks could not string together enough stops and baskets to permanently flip the scoreboard and wrest the game’s momentum in their favor.
BOX SCORE: Heat 106, Bucks 103
The Bucks trailed by two after the first quarter and by six at halftime and took a brief third quarter lead at 71-68, but they couldn’t put together a sustained run due to ill-timed turnovers, fouls or an offensive rebound that slipped through the defense.
“We got the fight, man,” Bucks guard Ryan Rollins said. “We gotta bring it every night. We have the fight, we have the people, the personnel to be able to come out here consistently and have that defensive intensity. We gotta come out and do it every game.”
After Bobby Portis Jr. tied the game at 73 with just under two minutes to go in the third quarter, the Bucks were outscored 25-13 through the opening six minutes of the fourth quarter. In that period, they turned it over three times and went 5-for-14.
To their credit, the Bucks didn’t let go of the rope when they fell behind by a dozen and cut the deficit to 104-101 in the final 66 seconds thanks to a Gary Trent Jr. 3-pointer. But with two timeouts left, head coach Doc Rivers elected to let his team play it out and they could not tie the lead or take the lead.
Though Rollins said he would’ve liked to work out of a timeout, he agreed with Rivers and Turner that good shots were there in the end.
“I loved it,” Rivers said of eschewing a stoppage. “Loved the call. Would do it again. I thought we could’ve moved the ball. We had time. But other than that, I loved how we played. I thought instead of letting them set their defense we had them on their heels. And I thought if we would’ve just kept moving it, we would’ve got the shot we wanted.”
They had another chance to tie the game with 42 seconds left when Rollins rebounded his own missed free throw and kicked it out to Trent, who missed an open three. Then with 5.7 seconds left Myles Turner missed a 3-pointer.
“For me personally, I saw it after the game, (Trent) was open in the corner,” Turner said. “It could’ve been a ‘one more.’ But in that moment the ball is coming to me, I see a late closeout, and I want to at least put the ball on the rim with time left.
“It’s not like I held the ball to get a buzzer beater. I wanted to put a live ball on the rim, if it goes in, great, we go the shot that we wanted. But if it doesn’t, we’ve got three, four seconds to make a play. It’s a tough situation because again I feel at times, in that, when the ball comes to you you’re thinking shot, but you have to be able to read the floor. I take accountability for that.
“I think ‘GT’ was wide open but I also feel like in my position, being one of the better shooters on the team, I have to take that shot.”
Turner played perhaps his most aggressive offensive game on the young season, using his size advantage to get position inside in scoring 24 points on 9 of 15 shooting. His previous season high in scoring was 23 points against Chicago on Nov. 7.
“I put a lot of it on myself, though, because I feel like I was just kind of waiting for things to happen as opposed to making them happen,” Turner acknowledged. “I’ve been watching a lot of film with our staff and my self trying to find more ways to be efficient. I know I’m a 40% shooter but there’s other ways to be effective. I’m 7-fot tall. I know I gotta be around the paint, make teams collapse a little bit more. Just taking advantage of what the defense gives me. I’ll see a plethora of different defenses throughout the year so just picking and choosing my spots and make the right decisions.”
Rollins had his third straight rough night on the offensive end, as he’s been adjusting to increased attention from opponents since Antetokounmpo was sidelined. Though he led the team with 26 points, he was 11 of 24 from the floor. But, he rebounded after a 1-for-8 start to give the Bucks a chance at the end.
Bucks trying to manage spirit amidst losing streak
It was only two weeks ago when the prevailing thought in the Bucks locker room was that they were on the verge of breaking out of their win-every-other-game routine and set off on a winning streak.
Multiple players told the Journal Sentinel they felt “close” to putting enough complete games together to finally stack wins.
And then, Antetokounmpo strained his left adductor in the first half of an eventual loss to Cleveland on Nov. 17. It was the first time the team had lost two in a row, and after losing to Miami on Nov. 26 the team is mired in a six-game losing streak.
So how has the team managed to handle such an emotional swing, from thinking that perhaps the best was just on the horizon only for it to move further away?
“You gotta manage expectations, bro,” Turner told the Journal Sentinel in Miami. “That’s the league at this point. I think that there’s a lot of factors that go into winning. Winning is very hard in this league but all it takes is one, you know what I mean? All it takes is the win to break the schneid a little bit and then you continue to build from there. You can’t set your expectations so high and then have reality kind of hit you in the face. I think it’s just again, managing that expectation.”
Part of absorbing the punches they are taking is keeping a level head. Portis has set a steady tone in his postgame comments during the losing streak, as has the emerging Rollins. The team has looked and sounded connected, despite their disappointment.
And they hope that their effort in Miami, particularly defensively, was the spark that can catch in New York.
“I feel like this is a good start to that,” Rollins said after the game. “This is the first game in five or six games where you’ve had that energy and a competitive spirit and defensive drive. We just gotta build off this, a building block and just keep it rolling and get the next one.”
That is part of not losing sight of the bigger picture, or thinking that the good feelings before the losing streak began has has totally disappeared.
“Injuries, things like that, you can never predict,” Bucks guard AJ Green told the Journal Sentinel in Miami. “I think we would’ve liked to have had, obviously the last few games, go differently. But that’s the ups and downs. That’s the adversity that life and the game just throws at you.
“We still are close. I know we’ve lost but we’ve got to see the good. We still are close, but we just haven’t done it.”
Bucks slowed down NBA’s top offense
Nearly every NBA team came out of training camp wanting to play faster, but the Heat has really taken that concept to a new level in creating offense with speed by largely eliminating pick-and-rolls on offense, and other “slower” actions like dribble handoffs or set actions in the half court.
Rather, the Heat want to push the action with drives to the rims and kickouts for either more drives or open shots.
The Heat came into the game on Nov. 26 with the top-scoring offense in the league at 123.9 points per game and is playing with the most pace with 106.1 possessions per 48 minutes. That is so fast it’s 1.57 possessions more than second-ranked Chicago and 5.33 more than the Bucks (No. 19 at 100.81 possessions per game).
One of the reasons Miami can have so many possessions and score at that rate is because, on average, it is shooting the ball within 13 seconds. Chicago is the next-fastest shooting team at over 13.5 seconds.
Per Sportico, it is the fastest NBA offense in the last decade.
That has allowed the Heat to put up a league-best 93.7 shots per game and create the third-most assists per game (30.2). Miami came into the game against Milwaukee No. 2 in 2-point shot attempts (58.1) but just 21st in 3-point attempts (35.6). But, it made 37.3% of those threes, which was 10th best in the NBA.
On paper, it would seem like the Bucks wouldn’t be equipped to slow the Heat down as they came in allowing 119.3 points per game, which was 21st in the league.
Yet they held the Heat to their second-fewest point total all season, came up with 14 turnovers and coerced them into just 28% shooting from behind the 3-point line.
“I think we did a great job shrinking the floor, forcing them into tough shots,” Turner said. “I think that down the stretch our defense was great. Again, we proved we could guard tonight. We tell on ourselves all the time when we have possession by possession where we get the stops that we wanted, then we do stuff like we’ve done in the past and we allow teams to blow the game open and it’s just not our style of play. I know this team is capable of guarding. Again, we’ve showed it multiple times now. It’s a matter of doing it consistently.”
Cole Anthony’s struggles continue
Oct. 24 feels like a lifetime ago, but that was probably the last time Bucks guard Cole Anthony played to the top of his capability. In that game in Toronto, just the second game of the season, he came off the bench to score 23 points and hand out seven assists while turning it over just one time in a Bucks victory. But after missing the next game with an illness, Anthony has been in a rut since Oct. 28.
While individual plus/minus numbers (the team’s point differential when a player is on the court) can be flawed depending on game circumstance, Anthony has recorded a negative differential six times and a net zero, once, since that Toronto game.
In the 13 games heading into the Detroit game on Nov. 22, Anthony was shooting just 36.6% overall, 28.1% from behind the 3-point line (and 62.5% from the free throw line) to average 7.4 points while turning it over 2.4 times against 5.2 assists.
“I’ve been driving myself crazy,” Anthony said following practice on Nov. 19. “I’m trying to get back in the gym – not get back, but you know, go a little extra hard in the gym. Worked out before practice, got a good one in after practice. Feel pretty good. I think this is a great opportunity with ‘GA’ out, I feel like I can get my rhythm. Obviously within the flow of the game, within the flow of the team, but I think it’s a great opportunity just to get myself going, get everyone else going.”
Shooting slumps happen, but Rivers and Anthony both acknowledged the point guard has not always taken the right shot at the right time according to the shot profile.
“There kind of been times where I kind of hesitate and then my opportunity for my shot will be gone and I think I’ve forced a few times,” Anthony acknowledged after that practice. “Just be patient, let the game come to me. I know where I can get my shots, I know the shots I like, and I’m going to get to those. I’m not really stressing about it.”
In his last two games (at Cleveland and Philadelphia) after that practice Anthony had been a bit more discerning with his shot selection, but he still had more turnovers (six) than shots made (four).
Then, against the bigger and physical Pistons, Rivers turned to Andre Jackson Jr. to provide some size on the defensive end and on the glass, so Anthony played just 14 minutes while the regulars were in the game. Though he was 2 of 4 for four points in his first 7 minutes, he also turned it over twice and finished with five turnovers.
Anthony had a nice bounceback offensively against Portland on Nov. 24 (16 points on 8 of 12 shooting) in just under 18 minutes, but against Miami he was 0-for-7 in just 11 minutes and turned it over two times in situations that set the Bucks back in the second half.
“He’s struggling,” Rivers said after the game against the Heat. “He’s struggling right now. And we have to do something to help him. You know, he’s turning the ball over and taking some really rough shots for us. We just gotta keep coaching him. The kid can play. We gotta keep believing in him. He gets down on himself, probably too much, which leads to the next error. So we gotta find the right happy medium to get him to be able to play through mistakes.”
Bucks lose for first time in NBA Cup pool play
The game on Nov. 26 was the first time in franchise history the Bucks lost an NBA Cup pool-play game, dropping them to 10-1 in three seasons.
To have a chance to advance to the quarterfinals for the third straight year the Bucks will have to beat New York at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 28 while getting help from some of the other pool play games.
5 numbers
1: Losses for head coach Doc Rivers in nine career games the in-season tournament.
2: Timeouts left when the game ended for Milwaukee.
1-5: Bucks record when Antetokounmpo does not play.
3-9: Miami’s 3-point shooting in the decisive fourth quarter after going 7 of 27 (25.9%) through the first three quarters.
5-7: Bucks record against teams with a .500 record or better on the day of the game.
Giannis Antetokounmpo did not suffer injury set back
Following a pregame workout before the Bucks played Portland on Nov. 26, Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo was upgraded to questionable to play vs. the Heat. He participated in the team’s shootaround at the Kaseya Center on Nov. 28, but head coach Doc Rivers said before the game against the Heat that Antetokounmpo did not finish the session.
After the game, Rivers clarified that it was not a setback for Antetokounmpo as he tries to return from a left adductor strain suffered on Nov. 17.
“No. No,” Rivers began. “I was not in favor. I was very happy we decided what we decided. I was very uncomfortable with it. He really wanted to push, and that’s who Giannis is. I was very happy with our medical team today. They decided at the end of the day, let’s wait. And, obviously as a coach I can’t get involved but so much but I told Giannis that, this morning, it should be a no tonight. Then the medical team told him as well. What makes Giannis great is it yes from him. We just thought it was the right thing to do.”
Milwaukee Bucks injury report
Bucks starters
Tyler Herro has returned for Heat
Whitnall High School alumnus and all-star guard Tyler Herro is finally back for Miami after missing the first 17 games of the season following ankle surgery. Herro started his comeback hot, scoring 24 points on 12 of 18 shooting in just 29 minutes in a Heat win over Dallas on Nov. 24.
What is the NBA Cup?
The NBA Cup is an in-season tournament the league began during the 2023-24 season. It features all 30 teams broken up into six “groups” for pool play. The winners of each group and one wildcard from each conference (so eight total teams) advance to single elimination tournament play culminating in the championship game in Las Vegas.
“When they see the court, you can feel that it means something,” Bucks head coach Doc Rivers said.
“From a team perspective, it gives us a chance to look at big game situations.”
The Los Angeles Lakers (2023) and Bucks (2024) were the first two champions of the Cup while LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo were the first two most valuable players.
Each team has hung a championship banner in their respective arenas to commemorate the title.
What is the prize money for the NBA Cup?
What time is the Bucks game?
The game is scheduled for a 6:30 p.m. CT tip-off.
What channel is the Bucks game on?
The game will be broadcast locally on FanDuel Sports Network Wisconsin. Dave Koehn, Wesley Matthews and Stephen Watson are on the call.
Bucks vs. Heat odds
Miami is a 7.5-point favorite over Milwaukee, with the over/under set at 237.5 points per BetMGM.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Heat outlast Bucks 106-103 in NBA Cup game without Giannis
Reporting by Jim Owczarski, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
