After the Milwaukee Bucks were crushed by 39 points in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference semifinals they finally got their first win of the series as Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton went off to lead the Bucks to a 86-83 victory in the NBA playoffs matchup.
The team’s two all-stars, Antetokounmpo and Middleton, worked together to score 68 points, 3 assists, and 29 rebounds in Game 3 of the series against the Brooklyn Nets. The duo were credited with 79% of the Bucks points Thursday night.
Game 3 was very evenly matched and a terrible offensive outing for both teams in this low-scoring semifinals matchup. Milwaukee is still struggling from three-point land shooting 6/31 (19%) but the Nets did not shoot much better being only 8/32 (25%). It was about as even in the rebounding department as well with the Bucks (56) only grabbing 6 more rebounds than the Nets (50). Both teams also grabbed 7 offensive rebounds.
According to Bleacher Report, “After falling down 30-11 after the first quarter, the Nets rallied back in the second and held steady in the third.” With every Bucks player outside of Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton struggling from the field, the fourth quarter seemed primed for a takeover from Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving.
Bucks get their first win of the series in an evenly matched Game 3
KD seemingly took on the challenge. When he and P.J. Tucker squared off over some contact on a drive, Durant had 17 points on 18 shots. After that, he played just under 14 of the last 16 minutes and went 5-of-10 for 13 points”. So it is pretty obvious from the statistics and the score that this was a game Brooklyn would like to forget.
Brooklyn was without James Harden again during Game 3, who has only played 43 seconds in this series due to a hamstring injury. Harden’s absence in this series has not really been felt by Brooklyn but maybe we are seeing signs of it with Game 3’s lack of scoring.
The fourth quarter was especially rough for both teams as the Bucks were up by two with neither team scoring for a considerable amount of time. Finally, Durant hit a deep three, and on the very next possession, and Jrue Holiday who had been cold offensively all night pushed the ball down the court and with an amazing spin move to put the Bucks up three.
That ended up being enough as Brooklyn could not answer on a bad inbound play that ended up making Durant take a deep contested three that hit the back of the rim and went flying. Even with a win, Milwaukee will still have to play much better if they want a shot of making it to the Eastern Conference Finals.