With the news of Damian Lillard’s deep vein thrombosis diagnosis and Giannis being ruled out earlier in the day with a foot complaint, the Milwaukee Bucks went into this game against the Denver Nuggets severely undermanned. Milwaukee fought hard but was ultimately beaten 127-117. Brook Lopez led the Bucks with 26 points, seven rebounds, and three blocks, while Nikola Jokić was awesome for the Nuggets with a 39-10-10 triple-double. Read our full summary of the game here and catch a six-minute audio recap on the Bucks+ podcast Bucks In Six Minutes below.
What Did We Learn?
I wrote after the Sacramento game that there are enough weapons on this team to the point that Doc does have options for the playoffs if guys aren’t playing well, and it’ll be on him to push the right buttons. For example, Kyle Kuzma was pretty bad last night, going 3/10 from the field with three turnovers and a -16 in his 36 minutes. Frankly, they looked better when he was on the bench. Playing him through rough stretches like that cannot happen in the playoffs; Doc must act quickly if he’s hindering the team to that degree.
Kevin Porter Jr. was also mostly bad, going 5/15 with four TOs and a team-worst -17. Give KPJ credit for saving their bacon against the Kings (and in a few other games as well), but he didn’t have it in this one. On the other hand, Ryan Rollins was excellent with 17 points on 7/9 shooting and a +17 in just 18 minutes. Options are there, and it’s in Doc’s hands as to how he deploys them.
Three Bucks
If there were doubters, Brook Lopez proved he’s still got it.
Putting aside the fact that last night would have been the perfect opportunity to sit Lopez, the 36-year-old seemingly wants no part of resting... and he remains an awesome player. 12/17 from the field and 2/5 from three with seven rebounds and three blocks to boot is pretty damn good.
AJ Green got out of his shooting slump.
Green had gone 10/36 (27.8%) from deep since they played the Dallas Mavericks at home on March 5. But last night AJ went 5/9—many of them highly contested as well—to break out of that extended slump he’d been in. Postgame, Green spoke about embracing both the good and the bad of an NBA season:
“It feels good to make shots. Whether it’s a slump or [I’m] shooting 100%, I think there’s something to learn from every situation, and you’ve just got to control what you can control. So I don’t know how many I’ll make next game, but I’m going to keep shooting them, and we’ve just got to keeping finding ways to win game as a team too.”
Kyle Kuzma’s ability to impact the game was significantly hindered without Dame or Giannis playing.
This is no secret, but Kuzma works best as a slasher-type where he is attacking off advantages already created by others. Any time they entered it into Kyle and looked for him to make a play, it went very badly, as you can see here:
Bonus Bucks Bits
There was a bad no-call on AJ Green with just over three minutes left in the game. Milwaukee was down six points and on a fastbreak with the numbers advantage when Peyton Watson blatantly veered into AJ Green’s path, causing him to lose the ball, and the Nuggets went down their end and scored. Doc was irate at the officials in the moment and called it a “game-changing no-call” postgame.
Michael Porter Jr., who went 2/11 from three in the first matchup between these two teams, shot much better this time around, going 6/8 from deep (including 5/5 in the first half).
Jokić is obviously a terrific offensive player, and I suppose he’s smart enough on defence. But man, the way the Nuggets guard the pick-and-roll with him—where they willingly put two on the ball and simply hope the backside defence can clean it up—is a little jarring to watch. Like, they don’t even really try to guard the pick-and-roll two-on-two the way the elite defensive teams try to.
Up Next
The Bucks head home now and will face the New York Knicks on Friday night at 7:00 p.m. Central. You can watch the game on FanDuel Sports Network Wisconsin or stream it on our Playback and YouTube channels.
Support our site! | BreakingT | ESPN+ | ESPN+ 30 For 30 | fuboTV | Disney+