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After a barn-burner of a win in Oklahoma City, the Milwaukee Bucks travelled southwards to one of the points of the Texas Triangle. In their contest against the San Antonio Spurs, the Bucks fell short by a mark of 111-93.
The Bucks kept pace with the Spurs over the opening minutes, an otherwise unremarkable feat were it not for being drastically short handed. Even Grayson Allen joined the inactives right before tip-off! At the end of the first quarter, Milwaukee trailed only 31-27, and that’s with nine of the Bucks’ 10 active players seeing minutes in the opening period. Slowly but surely, Milwaukee’s lack of dynamic offensive talent allowed the Spurs to build their lead, as halftime commenced with the Bucks trailing San Antonio 54-46.
In the second half, the Bucks’ anemic offense really showed. The combination of missing their stars and having played an additional 10 minutes two days prior (also without their top players) was more than Milwaukee could overcome. The Spurs’ lead became 10, and then flirted with 20 for a while, and a Doug McDermott three pointer blasted through the twenty-point barrier midway through the third quarter. Milwaukee battled back because they refuse to go out like punks, and they managed to rattle off a 22-8 run to close the third quarter and make it 83-76 going into the fourth. It turned out to be both too little and too late, as the Bucks’ cold shooting did them in and resulted in the final tally.
Stat That Stood Out
The Bucks had very little going on offense, and without Giannis Antetokounmpo their usual buffer provided by transition opportunities had completely evaporated. For the first time that I can remember, the Bucks had failed to score a single basket in transition as the Spurs held a 21-0 edge in transition scoring. Milwaukee’s depth is good, as long as it is focused on supporting the stars. When the central pillars of the Bucks’ offense are missing, things just don’t work as well. That provides the opponent entirely too much margin of error at the NBA level, and the Spurs capitalized on Milwaukee’s temporary impotence.
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