Giannis Antetokounmpo on his windmill dunk, postgame shoving vs. Bulls
Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo, Ryan Rollins and Bobby Portis Jr. spoke on Antetokounmpo’s windmill dunk and postgame shoving vs. Bulls
CHARLOTTE – There are 49 games left in the 2025-26 regular season, which is still quite a bit of time for a massive turnaround for the Milwaukee Bucks – but not so much time that they let any chance to win slip away. They did not let that happen on Monday, Dec. 29, beating the Charlotte Hornets 123-113 at the Spectrum Center.
The Hornets were one of just four teams with a worse record than the Bucks.
The Bucks outscored the Hornets 60-47 in the second half to overcome a 12-point deficit late in the first half after Charlotte shot 52% from behind the 3-point line in the first half (12-for-23).
The Bucks had already has lost once to the Hornets, which means a loss Dec. 29 would put the Bucks in jeopardy of losing the tiebreaker to the rebuilding team.
Before the game, Milwaukee head coach Doc Rivers acknowledged his team’s 13-19 record (14-19 after Monday’s victory) has created pressure.
“We’ve had a lot of injuries and we feel like we have to win as many games as we can, as quickly as we can,” Rivers said. “This is one coach right now we don’t have to manufacture (pressure). It’s there.”
Bucks win two games in a row
It has taken over two months of play but the Bucks are on the verge of something they haven’t done this season – a three-game winning streak. The victory over Charlotte was the first time the team has won consecutive games (including Dec. 27 against the Bulls) since Oct. 28-30 when they beat New York and Golden State at home. The team hosts Washington, the second-worst team in the Eastern Conference, on Dec. 31.
Heading into the game against the Hornets, the Bucks were 2-10 in games following a victory. And they weren’t that competitive. Only three of those losses were by two possessions or fewer. In the other seven, the average margin of defeat was a whopping 21.6 points.
Of the 10 teams in the league that entered play on Dec. 29 with either the same record or worse than the Bucks, half of them had won at least three in a row at one point to date.
Bobby Portis Jr. leads strong bench performance
With Giannis Antetokounmpo returning to action, Bobby Portis Jr. has retuned to his usual role as an instant offensive generator off the bench the last two games. Portis scored 25 points in 23 minutes against the Hornets, and helped lead a strong bench effort that helped the Bucks win on the road.
Portis scored 15 second half points, including 11 in the third quarter when he went 3-for-3 from behind the 3-point line and helped the Bucks break a 95-95 tie and wrest control of the game. Portis hit all three 3-pointers in a row for the Bucks and then added a bucket to give them a 13-point lead.
Though the Bucks did not use all-bench units, the reserves scored 43 points. Gary Trent Jr. returned from missing a couple of games with a calf bruise to score nine points while Kyle Kuzma had six points, five rebounds and two assists. Gary Harris added three points.
Aside from Portis’ fourth-quarter explosion, the other key point in the game for the Bucks bench was late in the second quarter when the Hornets built a 10-point lead against the Bucks’ starters. But by halftime, Milwaukee trailed just 66-63.
Did you notice?
With 7 minutes, 54 seconds left in the game Hornets guard Josh Green caught a pass in the corner and instead of putting up a shot he put the ball on the floor and went up for what looked like a dunk attempt. Bucks forward Kyle Kuzma came flying in and made it look like he was about to challenge Green at the rim, but at the last moment Kuzma spun around in the air and went out of bounds. Green was caught off guard and missed the layup. The Hornets got the offensive rebound but missed the follow up, and Bobby Portis Jr. would go down and give the Bucks a 13-point lead with 7:28 to go after that, a margin they needed.
5 numbers
6: Offensive rebounds for Charlotte big man Moussa Diabaté. Diabaté came into the game averaging 3.7 offensive rebounds per game this season (and 2.6 for his career), but in his last five games against the Bucks heading into Dec. 27 he averaged a whopping 6.8 offensive boards per game and 12.4 overall.
Doc Rivers before the game: “Some guys are like seven rebounds and his seven are offense. He’s just tough. He’s a great rebounder. He’s good against everybody but he’s been great against us. We gotta get a body on him.”
6: Gary Harris’ plus/minus for the Bucks off the bench. Harris has registered a positive point differential in five of his last six games (plus-40).
4-1: Bucks record with the starting lineup of Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kevin Porter Jr., Ryan Rollins, AJ Green and Myles Turner.
6-3: Bucks record against the four teams that began the day behind them in the Eastern Conference standings (Charlotte, Brooklyn, Washington, Indiana).
48.5: Percent shooting from behind the 3-point line for the Bucks, which was a return to “normal” for what used to be the best shooting team in the league. They had shot 36% or less in six of their previous seven games coming into the game in Charlotte.
Miles Bridges injures ankle vs. Bucks
Charlotte’s starting forward Miles Bridges injured his right ankle in the first quarter after playing seven minutes, and he was ruled out for the rest of the game. He scored three points on 1 of 2 shooting in his limited action.
Is Giannis playing?
Yes. The Bucks superstar made his return to the court Dec. 27 in Chicago after missing just more than three weeks with a strain of the soleus muscle in his right calf.
Antetokounmpo was on a 25-minute restriction but still scored 29 points in leading the Bucks to a rare road win at the United Center, and he said after the game he anticipates being under that restriction for the foreseeable future.
Kon Knueppel is out for the Hornets
Rookie of the year candidate and Milwaukee native Kon Knueppel is out for the game against his hometown team, as he suffered a right ankle sprain.
“The goal from our coaching staff and from our performance staff is just to take the approach like we would with anybody that’s hurt, just a daily evaluation of where he is and where his symptoms are,” Charlotte head coach Charles Lee said pregame on Dec. 29. “I would say that I think that he made good progress and we’ll see how he shows up (Dec. 30).”
He is averaging 19.3 points per game on 42.8% shooting from behind the 3-point line. He helped the Hornets beat the Bucks on Nov. 11 in Charlotte with a huge shot late in the game and followed it up with a 32-point effort in a loss on Nov. 13 in his homecoming at Fiserv Forum.
“We will definitely miss just his overall competitiveness,” Lee said. “Defensively I think he’s made a really big mark on our team with his ability to guard a lot of different positions and do it with great physicality. Offensively his shooting has been really good, his playmaking’s been good.”
Bucks starting lineupGuards: Kevin Porter Jr., AJ Green, Ryan RollinsForward: Giannis AntetokounmpoCenter: Myles Turner
This group likely will start its fifth game together this season, and the team is 3-1 when it does. The group played 16 minutes together upon Antetokounmpo’s return in Chicago, pushing the total time together on court to 45 minutes.
Per the NBA’s advanced stats, this group averages 127.4 points per 100 possessions and allows 103.2 points per 100 possessions.
To put that into context, Denver has the league’s best offense (124.0) and Oklahoma City has the league’s best defense (104.6).
What time is the Bucks game?
Tip-off is scheduled for 6 p.m. CT.
What channel is the Bucks game on?
The game will be broadcast locally on FanDuel Sports Network Wisconsin with Lisa Byington, Wesley Matthews and Melanie Ricks on the call.
Bucks vs. Hornets odds
Milwaukee is a 2.5-point favorite over the Charlotte, with the over/under set at 227.5 points per BetMGM.
Giannis Antetokounmpo leads East all-star fan voting
Despite missing 14 games and parts of two others, Antetokounmpo leads all Eastern Conference players in the initial fan vote for the 2026 all-star game. The league released the first round of voting on Dec. 29, and Antetokounmpo (1,192,296 votes) was the conference’s top vote-getter ahead of Philadelphia’s Tyrese Maxey (1,072,449). There are no positions in the voting anymore.
Los Angeles Lakers guard Luka Dončić leads all players with 1,249,518 votes.
Fan voting represents 50% of the vote to determine the five starters from each conference. Current NBA players and a media panel account for 25% each.
The all-star game format has changed yet again for 2026, with two teams of U.S. players and one team of international players (the world team) playing in a round-robin tournament featuring four, 12-minute games Feb. 15 at the Clippers’ Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California.
The three teams will each have a minimum of eight players. Of the top 24 players in the fan voting, nine are international players.