Bucks vs. Warriors: Milwaukee goes cold in 108-95 loss to Golden State

When you shoot below 35 percent from the field through the first three quarters and under 40 at the end of the game against the top-scoring team in the league, you can't expect the final outcome to be very positive.

Milwaukee endured a rough night shooting, hitting just 37.9 percent of their shots as Golden State won its 60th game and extended its winning streak to nine games. The Warriors clinched the top seed in the Western Conference after defeating the Bucks, 108-95, and swept the season-series against Milwaukee in consecutive seasons for the first time in franchise history.

After shooting above 70 percent in the first quarter of Thursday's 111-107 win over the Indiana Pacers, the Bucks went just 5-of-21 shooting from the field and 3-for-14 in the paint. Surprisingly, Jason Kidd's club still was only down 24-23 at the end of the first, mostly because of their 13 free-throw shots made. Defensively, the Bucks also held Golden State to zero fast break points.

"We had some good looks," Kidd said afterwards, "they just didn't go down for us tonight. I thought our defense was pretty good. If we're going to rely on making shots against the elite teams, we're going to find ourselves in a lot of games that we're going to lose.

"I think anytime when you can't make shots, you have to find another way and that's getting to the free-throw line." Kidd said. "We did a good job of that."

At halftime, the Bucks shot a lousy 27 percent, which is the worst they've shot in a half this season.

"Even if we don't make shots, we have to stick to our principles to give ourselves the best chance to win," O.J. Mayo said. Mayo scored just eight points for the Bucks after going 2-of-6 from the field in 20 minutes.

"We're built to play defense and work from defense to offense and tonight we got frustrated because we missed some shots we normally make." Kidd said.

Registering shooting percentages of 24 and 29 percent in the first two quarters certainly didn't help Milwaukee. Two of the Bucks' main scorers -- Khris Middleton and Ersan Ilyasova -- combined to shoot only 6-of-24. Ilyasova ended the game with just eight points, with six of those points coming at the line. Middleton went just 5-of-14 from the field.

Ilyasova was coming off a career-high 34 points in the win against the Pacers (12-of-14 shooting), while Middleton had averaged 18.4 points per game in the month of March entering Saturday night. Jerryd Bayless and John Henson added seven and eight points respectively, but that came on just 5-of-17 shooting. Jared Dudley in his second game back added 13 points, with 11 of them coming in the fourth.

On the other end, the Splash Brothers known as Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson poured on a total of 46 points for the Warriors, including 17 in the third quarter from Thompson.

"They're young and they're talented. " Kidd said. "They play off each other quite well. They both can shoot the ball extremely well. You always have to be concerned, especially with those two on the floor."

The Warriors connected on 12 threes and shot 51 percent from the field despite scoring just five points in transition. The 12 threes tonight for Golden State give them a total of 784 for the season, which establishes a new franchise-record for made threes in a season.

The Bucks ended a four-game home-stand tonight, going 2-2 this week in matchups against Cleveland, Miami, Indiana and Golden State. Milwaukee travels to Atlanta tomorrow as they prepare to face Atlanta, who sits atop the Eastern Conference.