MILWAUKEE, WI – NOVEMBER 24: (Photo by Gary Dineen/NBAE via Getty Images).
The Milwaukee Bucks managed to prevail against the always competitive San Antonio Spurs down the stretch on Saturday night to end their six-game home stretch on a positive note.
Games on the second night of a back-to-back that come down to the wire are always hard to win, but facing the San Antonio Spurs, the Milwaukee Bucks pulled it off once more on Saturday, just like in Denver.
The Bucks appear to be really locked in on not losing two games in a row, and even though the Spurs were up by 10 with just over seven minutes remaining, Milwaukee made a 31-15 run from that point to close out the game and clinch victory.
During that stretch, Giannis Antetokounmpo had 12 points including 8-of-9 from the free throw line, the while Bucks hit five big three-pointers (two from Sterling Brown and one from each of Malcolm Brogdon, Khris Middleton and Eric Bledsoe).
The Bucks had an elite performance offensively overall, as they shot 34-of-46 from two-point range, 15-of-40 from three-point range and 22-of-29 from the free throw line while having 30 assists and just 13 turnovers.
The shot profile was perfect and in general everything seemed to flow very smoothly. Giannis seems to steadily get more and more comfortable operating within the offense and finding ways to be aggressive and take over games as an MVP candidate should.
The San Antonio Spurs got a lot of good looks from the mid-range around the elbow area, which is a shot the Bucks do prefer to allow, but the Spurs and especially DeMar DeRozan can convert from that area at an elite rate. Consequently, the All-Star guard scored 34 points shooting 50 percent from the field and was a big headache all night alongside the hot hands of combo guard Bryn Forbes and combo forward Davis Bertans who shot 14-of-22 from the field and 6-of-9 from three-point range for a very efficient 35 points combined.
In general, the Spurs as a whole did not seem to have big problems getting to their spots on Saturday night as they scored 129 points. The Milwaukee Bucks’ defense has really struggled in the last two games against two teams that scored an elite rate from mid-range.
So with all that said about the general overview of the game, let’s take a better look at how the individuals fared.
