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March came in like a lamb for the Bucks at the United Center today: a 16-point first-half lead turned into a 120-97 laugher, thanks to a catastrophic 27-0 Bulls run and a 33-8 fourth quarter in the home team’s favor. Still, the Bucks finished the season series 3-1 over the Bulls. Read our full summary of the game here and catch a six-minute audio recap on the Bucks+ podcast Bucks In Six Minutes below.
Player Grades
Myles Turner
21 minutes, 8 points, 7 rebounds, 2 steals, 1 block, 3 turnovers, 3/10 FG, 2/5 3P, 3/4 FT, -20
Scoreless after the first quarter, and only five further shot attempts. In his defense, Doc wasn’t playing him much for whatever reason. Probably could have used his rim protection for more than nine second-half minutes, given that Chicago outscored Milwaukee 34-10 in the paint after half.
Grade: D+
Kevin Porter Jr.
32 minutes, 10 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists, 4/16 FG, 0/1 3P, 2/2 FT, -23
A lot of really tough shots and few fell, especially inside. What I liked the least, though, was the open threes he passed up over and over again in the second half. Couldn’t stop Josh Giddey, who had a triple-double (and a surprising 14 rebounds).
Grade: D
AJ Green
30 minutes, 13 points, 2 assists, 4 fouls, 4/11 FG, 4/11 3P, -20
Again, all his points in the first half. 0/3 in the second. Made some important ones early, but then disappeared. Offered next to nothing on the other end.
Grade: D+
Ryan Rollins
34 minutes, 11 points, 7 rebounds, 7 assists, 5 turnovers, 2 steals, 5/11 FG, 1/6 3P, -19
The counting stats are decent until you get to the turnovers, which are a real problem of late with Rylo. His passing in the second quarter was outstanding, but his second half was a brickfest. Starting 4/4 and then going 1/7… hardly alone among the starters today.
Grade: C-
Kyle Kuzma
23 minutes, 10 points, 4 assists, 4 turnovers, 4/5 FG, – 24
I’ll give him credit for being the only Buck to make any hay inside, but otherwise, nothing positive from Kuz today. Seemed too cavalier when he entered in the fourth quarter, and the Bucks continued getting wrecked.
Grade: D
Bobby Portis
24 minutes, 18 points, 5 rebounds, 7/14 FG, 3/8 3P, +1
Too many middies (more on that later) and settling for jumpers, but at least they were falling. A key part of the Bucks’ second-quarter success, but also part of the unit that started to let the game slip away early in the fourth before checking out.
Grade: B–
Cam Thomas
18 minutes, 15 points, 3 assists, 3/11 FG, 8/10 FT, +2
The type of scoring line that looks really efficient if you only look at the free throws. Dribbled the air out of the ball, gets to the line, took ill-advised jumpers… the Cam Thomas experience.
Grade: C–
Jericho Sims
24 minutes, 2 points, 11 rebounds, 1/1 FG, +1
Excellent on the glass in the first half and five offensive boards for the game, but—stop me if you’ve heard this before—didn’t do anything after half. Also part of the unit I mentioned with Portis above, and was hardly near the rim when the Bulls started yamming on them.
Grade: C-
Ousmane Dieng
21 minutes, 7 points, 1 rebound, 3 assists, 3 steals, 3/12 FG, 1/6 3P, -1
Dieng’s three-point shooting has cratered the last three games (2/14), but a chunk of his misses came in garbage time after the Bucks went down 19. Wasn’t on the floor for too much of the early fourth quarter cataclysm.
Grade: C
Doc Rivers
Oh boy, where do I start? I’ll just give one of his postgame comments, but I have a lot more to say about today, which I’ll do in a separate place. Anyway, the Bucks missed 18 consecutive field goals from the third into the fourth quarter, and a lot were clean looks. Here’s what Doc had to say:
“I don’t care if it’s not in the paint. We’re getting wide-open threes. We’re one of the best shooting threes in the NBA. So if we take 30 of those, I can live with it. What I didn’t like is (that) we didn’t get the right shots. Half of them were twos, contested. That’s what bothered me in the game. Honestly, if we’d have got all those plays and they were wide-open threes and we had two points in the paint, but they were wide-open threes, I could go to sleep tonight. Because I know our guys got the right shots. I thought by the time we got the right shots, it was too late.”
Doc had earlier mentioned that “the good looks came after crappy basketball for the first 11 minutes of the third quarter.” Not addressing crappy basketball is bad enough. Moreover, shooters shoot, but to completely abandon anything inside?
Not that it was even a priority: the Bucks were 6/6 in the restricted area in the first half and 2/7 in the second half. Chicago had three injured in their frontcourt (Zach Collins, Jalen Smith, and Patrick Williams), so Nick Richards and Leonard Miller were their only guys above 6’8”. Matas Buzelis and Guerschon Yabusele rounded out an already-thin Bulls frontcourt post-deadline. Even without Giannis, Doc has five players 6’9” and up at his disposal, enough size and talent to deal with Chicago’s four. Not caring if their shots aren’t in the paint? To quote my colleague Jack Trehearne: diabolical.
Grade: F
Garbage Time: Gary Harris, Andre Jackson Jr., Pete Nance, Gary Trent Jr.
Inactive: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Alex Antetokounmpo, Thanasis Antetokounmpo, Taurean Prince, Cormac Ryan
Bonus Bucks Bits
- Eight points is the lowest any NBA team has scored in a regulation quarter this season. Milwaukee was 2/21 from the floor in the period.
- The Bulls’ 27-0 run was a franchise record. And that was the second-largest run the Bucks have ever given up: the worst was a 29-0 Cavs run at the Bradley Center in December 2009, as we found out postgame. For what it’s worth, the NBA record is 30-0.
- Portis asked us assembled reporters in the locker room post-game if we’d ever seen anything like that run. He hadn’t, and none of us had either—at least not in person.
- A few more stats on the Bucks’ epic drought: the 18 straight misses came between Cam Thomas’ lay-in at 1:23 in the third and Dieng’s dunk with 3:12 left in the game. That’s 10 minutes, 11 seconds.
- They also missed 15 consecutive threes across a slightly longer span. At half, they were 10/23 from deep, a nice 43.5%. In the second half: 3/23, 13%. 13/46 overall is 28.3%. Barf.
- There were seven minutes and 32 seconds between Bucks points, and it took them just over six minutes to register a point in the fourth.
- But the most damning thing: of those 18 straight misses I mentioned? They took only one shot within 10 feet: a Portis driving hook.
- For the game, they took 30 attempts in the paint, and the Bulls outscored them there 50-26. The disparity was particularly bad in the second half: Chicago was 17/20 in the paint, and Milwaukee shot just 5/17.
- It was a sloppy game overall with 37 combined turnovers (19 for Milwaukee, 18 for Chicago), and Chicago scored six more points off them than Milwaukee’s 14.
- Strangely enough, the Bucks had a sizeable shot advantage with 11 more field goal attempts than the Bulls. Part of that can be chalked up to the Bucks’ 11-7 edge on the offensive glass. Free throws were 23-17 in favor of the home team.
- Milwaukee racked up 19 first-half assists—their highest total in a half since opening night—on 25 made baskets. Then seven on 10 makes in the second half. I’m no Red Auerbach, but I’d say that means you should probably pass the ball more.
- In checking the shot chart, I was struck by this: the Bulls took only two shots between nine feet and the three-point line. The Bucks took… a whole lot more.
- Matas Buzelis put Portis on a poster early in the fourth, but it’s all love: the two exchanged jerseys after the game. Bobby says he may need another room at home in Arkansas for the collection he’s amassed from opponents.
- There was a baby race at halftime in the United Center. Only two of seven even made it off the starting line (the charity stripe), and one only made it a few feet. Everyone else just sat there. 11-month-old Will—the only one who truly crawled—annihilated the competition and was scooped up at midcourt by Benny the Bull after his victory. He was interviewed by the Bulls’ in-game emcee, and after showing brief tactile interest in the foamy microphone screen, he pushed it away.
Up Next
This was the front end of a back-to-back, with a quick trip back to Milwaukee tonight to face the Boston Celtics tomorrow evening. Tip is 6:30 p.m. Central on Peacock and FanDuel Sports Network Wisconsin.