The Milwaukee Bucks suffered a disappointing loss at the hands of the Chicago Bulls, 114-110, Wednesday in Game 2 of their first round playoff series. Careless turnovers were made, defensive lapses, key players were injured and they could not contain Demar DeRozan. All of that added up to a frustrating loss. Now it is the defending champion Bucks on the ropes, as the teams head to Chicago with the series knotted 1-1.
DeRozan scored a career playoff-high 41 points, with 24 of those coming in the second half.
“No matter what you did in the regular season, this is a brand new start and new mindset,” DeRozan said. “You could see it in all the guys. It doesn’t matter if we’d lost 20 times to those guys. This is an opportunity for us to compete. We’ve got to take advantage of it.”
Milwaukee looked disinterested from the start. They had three turnovers, a missed shot from downtown and an errant jumper, as the Bulls raced out to a 9-0 lead. The Bucks fought back with two three pointers by Wesley Matthews to tie the game at 16, but the Bulls went on to lead by the slimmest of margins, 29-28 at the end of the first quarter.
The second quarter was not much better for the Bucks. After committing 21 turnovers in Game 1, they struggled to hang on to the basketball in Game 2. Khris Middleton and Jrue Holiday combined for eight turnovers in the first 24 minutes of play. Milwaukee finished the contest with 15 turnovers, including six by Holiday. The Bulls scored 19 points off of those mistakes.
“Credit to Chicago,” Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer said. “Especially those early ones. The hands and the activity. Getting deflections. Creating turnovers. We got to be sharper. “Sharper with our spacing. I think we have to screen better. Just be better with our passes. Then at times as the game went on just playing a little bit fast. Need better spacing. Better decisions.”
Holiday also got into foul trouble, picking up his third foul late in the first half, forcing him to the sidelines. Key Bucks reserve Bobby Portis sustained a right eye abrasion, after taking an inadvertent elbow from Bulls forward Tristan Thompson and had to leave the game. The Bulls had a 14-point advantage going into the locker room 63-49.
The only bright spot for the Bucks in the first half was Giannis Antetokounmpo passing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s 1,692 points as the franchise’s career playoff scoring leader.
“We got to play better,” Antetokounmpo said. “Execute better. Have more fun. I don’t feel like we were enjoying the game as much as possible.”
While the Bucks fans were still stunned at what was taking place, the Bulls kept their foot on the gas pedal, surging to an 18 point lead at the beginning of the second half. Milwaukee climbed back into the contest with a 15-2 run, culminating on a Middleton four-point play. DeRozan scored the final four points of the period, pushing the lead back to seven for Chicago, 87-80. DeRozan had 13 points in the quarter.
The Bulls started the final frame on a 9-0 run. To add insult to injury, the Bucks second best player, Middleton, hurt his left leg and left the game with 6:49 remaining. It was later determined that he has a sprained MCL and will undergo a MRI on Thursday.
Milwaukee sliced the lead to eight before Zach LaVine knocked down a huge three, with just under five minutes left. The Bucks tried to claw their way back and got within five, 107-102. Then Holiday missed a bunny and Nikola Vucevic nailed a three-pointer with 2:30 remaining.
The Bucks last gasp came when center Brook Lopez converted a three-point play with just under a minute left. Alex Caruso grabbed two offensive boards and DeRozan made the game clinching layup in the final seconds.
“I do think that playing some of these higher-level teams at the end of the year has maybe kind of hardened us, helped us grow,” Bulls coach Billy Donovan said. “It’s helped us get better. It’s helped us be able to have that kind of mentality that we’ve got to move on to the next play. I think at times this year when we played against good teams, when it started to go a little bit the other direction, we didn’t have enough in us to get it back going in our direction.”
As mentioned earlier, DeRozan scored 41 points. He also had seven rebounds, four assists, one steal and two blocks. Vucevic had a double-double with 24 points, 13 rebounds, two dimes and one steal. LaVine finished with 20 points, one rebound, three assists and one steal. Patrick Williams added 10 points, nine rebounds, three assists, one steal and one block.
Antetokounmpo led the Bucks with 33 points, 18 rebounds, nine assists, one steal and two blocks. Lopez scored 25 points, had six boards, one assist and one block. Middleton added 18 points, with five rebounds, eight assists and two steals. Holiday finished with 15 points, six rebounds, six assists and one block.
Game 3 of the series takes place in Chicago on Friday.
