Rapid Recap: Bucks 121, Magic 99

It wasn’t pretty for nearly 40 minutes, but the Milwaukee Bucks finished strong down the stretch to take down the Orlando Magic, 121-99.

NBA.com Box Score

For the second game in a row, the Milwaukee Bucks didn’t look nearly as crisp as past seasons when they would railroad inferior opponents. Against last year’s Playoff foe, they took advantage of turnovers early and often as they leapt out to a 63-54 advantage by halftime. Nikola Vucevic was doing his usual thing picking-and-popping and drilling triples in the Bucks face, but Milwaukee moved to more switching on that action in the second half.

Unfortunately, that malleability didn’t translate into Bud’s squad magically making Orlando go poof. Instead, the Magic stuck around while Giannis Antetokounmpo struggled with foul trouble and Khris Middleton couldn’t quite find his sound shooting stroke. Finally, just a few minutes into the fourth period, the Bucks three-pointers started to fall during a 22-2 scoring run that the Magic couldn’t overcome.

Milwaukee is back in action Wednesday in Detroit.

Stat That Stood Out

53-24 bench scoring advantage. It’s been an up-and-down experience for Milwaukee’s revamped bench squad this season, but on a night when the starters weren’t shooting the lights out, this team needed every ounce of additional scoring they could muster. Bobby Portis in particular found the bottom of the net from beyond the arc, in the paint and the midrange to finish with 20 points on 9-13 shooting.

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