What a distinction a month made for the Milwaukee Bucks.
Sunday’s 118-113 win in Brooklyn marked precisely one month for the reason that Bucks’ final recreation in New York — a 116-94 loss to the Knicks during which Milwaukee’s lack of effort annoyed their famous person ahead, Giannis Antetokounmpo.
“We didn’t compete,” Antetokounmpo stated after that loss at Madison Sq. Backyard. “Are we OK with not competing? I don’t know. I’m not OK with that s—.”
That Nov. 8 loss dropped the championship-hopeful Bucks’ file to 2-7, and they’d lose their subsequent recreation towards Boston, too, to fall to 2-8.
However the Bucks have been purple scorching ever since.
With Sunday’s hard-fought victory over the Nets, the Bucks improved to 10-3 of their final 14 video games and 12-11 total.
“I think we’re just playing better,” Antetokounmpo stated Sunday after main the Bucks with 34 factors on 14-of-22 taking pictures.
“We figured out ways to close games. I think starting the season, we just thought that teams were going to allow us to just come in here and win games, and that wasn’t that case. We have to play good basketball. We have to go out there and kind of demand respect.”
The Bucks’ sluggish begin to the season included a 115-102 loss to the Nets of their first journey to Barclays Heart on Oct. 27.
Sunday’s return began off equally, with Milwaukee trailing at halftime and at one level dealing with a double-digit deficit within the third quarter. However the Bucks ended the sport on a 14-5 run, with Antetokounmpo’s dunk with 1:09 remaining serving because the dagger.
“We’re a championship team,” stated Bobby Portis, who was a part of the Bucks roster that gained the NBA Finals in 2021.
“We’re battle-tested. We’ve been through the highs and lows. Every year is different, right? In our regard this year, obviously getting off to a slow start, to the world’s eyes, it’s like, ‘Oh, the Bucks are dead,’ but for our eyes, we never got rattled. We were just like, ‘Take it a day at a time and it’ll turn around.’”
The Bucks’ turnaround included going 4-0 within the group-play spherical of the NBA Cup, organising a single-elimination recreation towards the Orlando Magic in Milwaukee on Tuesday for the best advance within the league’s in-season event.
The Bucks are actually the No. 7 seed within the Japanese Convention — three spots behind the Knicks (14-9) and one forward of the Nets (10-14).
Veteran ahead Khris Middleton made his season debut Friday after present process offseason surgical procedure on his ankles, then scored 11 factors Sunday in Brooklyn.
Milwaukee gave the Nets a number of defensive seems, together with an efficient zone within the third quarter. Head coach Doc Rivers believes the Bucks’ defensive efficiency has improved “night and day” from the beginning of the season.
“We’ve just gotten better at it,” Rivers stated earlier than Sunday’s recreation. “We’ve made some changes since then as well to try to adapt to our team. And then offensively, the ball’s moving more, and honestly, guys are making shots. You can run your best offense, and if the ball doesn’t go in, it doesn’t go in. In a lot of cases, I thought, early on for whatever reason guys just didn’t make shots. They’re starting to.”
