Bucks fight all the way back, force OT, and run out of magic late
In an oddly-specific Friday afternoon Game Three between the Milwaukee Bucks and Indiana Pacers, what looked like another blowout turned into a bonafide thriller. It had shot making, defense, offensively stupid rebounding, and overtime to boot. The Bucks lose 118-121, but it was a hell of a fight.
Game Recap
For about five minutes the Bucks defense looked solid enough in the half court, preventing the Pacers from generating too many easy looks. Offensively, the shot selection was iffy (Bobby Portis was a culprit here with his bad touch and iso tendencies), and after an uncontested transition basket for Tyrese Haliburton the gates looked wobbly. Indiana then began hitting just about everything thrown at the rim from there while Milwaukee’s offense went on life support. Then Damian Lillard rolled both his knee and ankle awkwardly landing off a layup. He’d head to the locker room while the Pacers continued bombing away on a completely apathetic Bucks team. Milwaukee down 22-39 after one.
And then… Lillard arose from the dead and re-entered the game at the start of the second, sparking a mini-run from Milwaukee to force an early Carlisle timeout. Andre Jackson Jr. made his regular rotation debut and brought desperately-needed energy on both ends of the floor, skying for a nice putback dunk and leaping for an impressive cleanup block to help cover his teammates. Jae Crowder got his first minutes and promptly looked completely incompetent on both ends of the floor to help ruin the hard-won momentum. He was rightfully subbed right back out after two minutes, and a Dame/PatBev/Khris/AJJ/Lopez lineup did a miracle job to get the lead down under 10 with about four minutes to go. A bad couple of effort sequences late tanked the change to reel it in any closer than 7, and Milwaukee would be down 55-67 at the half.
That ferocity that characterized Milwaukee’s second quarter was thoroughly doused with the starting lineup back on the floor. Brook Lopez rekindled the flame a little with a very nice dunk off a Dame P&R action (a play that worked very well in the second). Much of the quarter was spent with back and forths from both teams, with Milwaukee getting Indy’s lead under single digits a few times without finding the final gear to push it over the edge and truly endanger Indy’s position. However, a final push with Khris Middleton as the main guy was paid off with a buzzer-beater by Middleton to ensure we’d have an honest-to-God game on our hands. Bucks only down 83-90 after three.
An improbable Bobby Portis bucket to start the fourth cut the lead to five, although TJ McConnell finally came to life to answer immediately. By this point, clearly numerous Pacers were frightened to be the guy taking the final shot any possession, so it fell on Obi Toppin to clank threes before a very tough contested Dame three cut the lead to two, 90-92.
And then… folks. They took the lead. Another Dame three made it 93-92. Astounding.
The Bucks and Pacers would be in for a scrap from there, battling to see which team’s execution fell short first, and it was Khris Middleton’s very tough three late which tied it at 111 and forced the game into overtime.
I wish I knew what to write here. There was a literal in-game two minute stretch where the Pacers took, and missed, what had to be close to five shots, and got offensive rebounds on all of them. And yet, it was the Bucks who survived the storm and got Middleton to the line to make it 115-113.
This literally happened:
Indiana’s youth would prove the difference on so many loose balls where they simply outfought or out hustled key guys like Bobby Portis and Brook Lopez.
Then Khris Middleton bailed their asses out again, scoring his 42nd point to tie it back up at 118 all with 6.7 on the clock. The Pacers went to Haliburton late, and he hit a floater and was fouled by either Patrick Beverly or Andre Jackson Jr. for the and-one. He’d sink the FT and Khris ran out of magic for a 118-121 loss.
Stat That Stood Out
89-72
That was the score between Milwaukee and Indiana from the second quarter onwards. A huge credit to the team’s fight to have come back from such a bad first quarter to make an unbelievably exciting game of it.
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