PHILADELPHIA – In the early hours of Saturday morning, after the Milwaukee Bucks had won a very late game against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Friday night in Minneapolis, Giannis Antetokounmpo sat at his locker and acknowledged a good victory over the Western Conference’s top team – but added winning Sunday in Philadelphia would make it count a bit more.
Since Doc Rivers had taken over on Jan. 29, the team had not followed a “good win” with another. This time, the Bucks did that on the strength of a dominant first half, beating the 76ers 119-98 in a matinee at the Wells Fargo Center.
“We did make it count,” Antetokounmpo said. “We just gotta carry over, carry over, carry over. It’s gotta be the key word for us. But at the end of the day I feel like we’re feeling like ourselves. Playing hard, we move the ball, we are defending better. We’re just playing, we’re just playing hard. We’re playing hard.
“So, from the Minnesota game where in the third quarter we kept them to 13 points, today we kept them in the fourth quarter to 16 points. That’s what we do. We have to keep on doing that.
“The ball is moving, everyone’s touching the ball. Bobby (Portis) is being Bobby, Brook (Lopez) is blocking shots, making shots, being a presence in the paint. Dame (Lillard) is just hooping, making shots, making decisions for everybody. Our shooters are spacing the floor for us and they’re ready to shoot. So, playing good basketball. Playing good basketball right now.”
BOX SCORE:Bucks 119, 76ers 98
The Bucks (37-21) effectively put the reeling 76ers (33-24) away in the first half, taking a 14-point lead after the first quarter and stretching it to 21 at the break.
Damian Lillard scored 17 points while Portis (15), Malik Beasley (11) and Antetokounmpo (11) all scored in double figures in the first half while the 76ers shot just 38% from the field. Without reigning MVP Joel Embiid, the 76ers didn’t have the firepower to keep up with the Bucks, who had 19 assists on their 26 made field goals at the break.
“Just moving the basketball kind of allows the defense to move and shift,” Portis said. “You can’t beat the ball. If the ball is moving guys have to rotate and put guys in scramble situations.
“Kind of sort of what teams did to us to start the year, put us in scramble situations, making us run around and things like that. So moving the basketball, playing free, knowing who needs to obviously create for others and things like that, getting the ball to the right people on time, I think we got a lot of rhythm shots.
“Basketball is a rhythm game and when the ball is moving I think the ball finds energy and it finds the right guy.”
With the ball movement, the Bucks shot 56.5% from the floor overall and 59.1% (13 for 22) from behind the three-point line.
The 76ers remained connected through the third quarter, outscoring the Bucks 34-26 to cut the deficit to 13, but they did not present a real threat to win in the second half.
“Off the bat we had each other’s back,” Beasley said. “I think that’s the first thing. I think we’re understanding how long we are and how great we can be, especially on the defensive end and we’ve been doing it.”
Antetokounmpo led all scorers with 30 points and tied with Lillard for the team-high in assists with nine. Lillard added 24 points. Portis scored 17 points off the bench while Brook Lopez finished with 11 points.
All-star guard Tyrese Maxey was the only real offensive option for the 76ers, and the Bucks harassed him enough into 8-of-19 shooting for his 24 points. Maxey added seven assists.
“It definitely felt good to come out of all-star break (with wins),” Beasley said. “They put us in the fire. A 9 p.m. game (in Minnesota), a lot of us didn’t go to sleep until 4 (a.m.) just because of our energy. Fly in, 1 p.m. game. It’s tough. But we grinding it out and it’s a great start out of the all-star break.”
Did you notice?
Rivers changed up the timing of his rotation a bit in the first quarter, as the starters stayed in together until the 3:26 mark. At that point, Milwaukee built a 24-17 lead and were on an 8-0 run when Philadelphia was called for a foul, which allowed for his first subs of the game.
“I liked (the run), but I was going to call a timeout soon,” Rivers said. “I think the 3:40, that’s too late, that’s too long for Giannis. We like giving him that short stint and then bringing him back in.”
Pat Connaughton came off the bench and added to it with a three-pointer to make it 27-17 Bucks. Portis then finished the quarter with back-to-back buckets in the final 48 seconds to give Milwaukee a 35-21 lead.
It was also the second straight first quarter where Damian Lillard played the entire 12 minutes. When Rivers took over he had begun subbing Lillard out for a few minutes and then putting him back in to close the frame.
“We’re going back and forth with that, trying to find the right rotation,” Rivers acknowledged. “Without Khris (Middleton) we want Dame or Giannis to be on the floor for the 48, so that’s what we’re doing.”
Giannis reaches scoring milestone
With a pair of free throws with 3 minutes, 23 seconds left in the third quarter Antetokounmpo became the 78th player in NBA history to score 18,000 points. The Bucks’ all-time scoring leader is just the eighth active player to reach the milestone, joining a group that includes Lillard.
It’s another step along the way for the 29-year-old, who not only is further distancing himself from former franchise scoring leader Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (14,211) but reeling in the upper echelon of the league’s all-time scorers.
Lillard became just the 51st player to score at least 20,000 points earlier this year.
Antetokounmpo is currently flirting with a career-high in scoring average while averaging over 30 points per game for the second straight season and he is shooting a career-best 61% from the field. No player in NBA history has ever done that over an entire season.
He scored 30 points against the 76ers to give him 18,005 for his career. Antetokounmpo added 12 rebounds and handed out nine assists.
Five numbers
00:00.1 Time left on the clock in the first half when Lopez dunked to give the Bucks a 69-48 lead. The 76ers appeared to have made the last score in the second quarter when Tobias Harris made a layup with 1.5 seconds left, but Antetokounmpo got the ball to his center with just enough time left.
4 Games the Bucks have held an opponent under 110 points since Rivers took over on Jan. 29. The team did it just five times before then.
8 Rank in Bucks history for single-season three-pointers made by Beasley after he knocked down his fourth, three-pointer against Philadelphia with nine minutes to go in the third quarter. Beasley has made 166 three-pointers in 56 games this season. He passed Khris Middleton (162 in 2021-22) and Todd Day (163 in 1994-95) and Michael Redd (163 in 2005-06). Ray Allen is the all-time single-season leader having made 229 in 2001-02.
Beasley scored 20 points in the win on Sunday, going 6 for 7 from behind the three-point line. It was the seventh time this season he’s made at least 6 three-pointers in a game.
Beasley: My role has been the same all year – defend and make shots. It’s been heightened because of the players I’m playing every game. And we’re on national TV, so I might be able to show that I can do both sides of the ball. I’m trying to be elite on both sides and I think I’m doing a great job. I gotta continue that. Next I got the young fella (Charlotte guard LaMelo Ball) back-to-back games. I gotta keep him down. He’s been averaging 30 a game so I gotta do that. That’s my next focus.
11-0 Run by the Bucks in the first quarter to build a 27-17 lead, and they withstood a run of the same number by the 76ers in the second quarter that saw Philadelphia cut the deficit to 40-35.
28-3 Bucks record when they score 30 or more points in the first quarter.
Doc Rivers booed in Philadelphia return
Before the game, the Bucks head coach said he hadn’t lost a bit of sleep over how he might be received by Philadelphia fans in his first game on an opposing sideline after being fired by the 76ers last May – and the Wells Fargo Center crowd welcomed him back in typical Philadelphia fashion with vociferous boos.
Rivers said he didn’t hear them — but did like some of the one-off heckles he got — and Giannis Antetokounmpo joked that there were only cheers for his new coach.
Rivers coached the last three seasons in Philadelphia leading the 76ers to a 154-82 (65.3%) regular season record, the second-best winning percentage by a coaching in franchise history. They were the top seed in the Eastern Conference in 2020-21 and Joel Embiid was an MVP in 2022-23, but they never advanced out of the second round of the playoffs.
As part of a nearly 10-minute pregame news conference, he was asked how he thought he might be remembered in the City of Brotherly Love.
“That’s up to you – that’s not up to me,” Rivers said. “I was happy with it overall. I just wish we could’ve got further, gone further. I wish I could’ve have had a chance to have Joel (Embiid) healthy in the playoffs. But when I took this job here (in Philadelphia) I think they got swept the year before in the first round. That regular season the nxt year we won the East, lost to Atlanta – I would love to have that one back as a group – but overall Joel became an MVP, we established this team as a championship contender. That wasn’t said the year before. And under a lot of stuff. You think about we had the James Harden trade, the Ben (Simmons) stuff, so it was a lot of stuff going on. Some was under my control, some was out of my control. But overall, for me, if you don’t win a title you’re never exactly happy. That’s why we all do this. There’s only going to be one of those a year. But I loved it here.”
When will Khris Middleton play?
The three-time all-star suffered a sprained ankle against Phoenix on Feb. 6 and missed the final five games before the all-star break. He did not practice Thursday, was out for the Timberwolves game and Rivers said Middleton “probably” will be out for Sunday’s matinee. But Middleton did a walkthrough at Thursday’s practice, which was enough for Rivers to say if it were a playoff series Middleton could go.
“Getting closer,” Rivers said before the 76ers game. “I don’t know if I’m going to say close enough that we can think next game (against Charlotte on Tuesday) but he’s getting a lot closer. He’s feeling a lot better.”
First appeared on www.jsonline.com