Kevin Porter, Giannis speak on Bucks victory, Doc Rivers on wins mark
Kevin Porter Jr. and Giannis Antetokounmpo speak on the Bucks win in Charlotte, Doc Rivers on passing George Karl in career wins on Dec. 29, 2025
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.
Heading into the day’s schedule, the Hornets (11-21) were just one of four teams in the Eastern Conference with a worse record than the Bucks (14-19).
The Bucks outscored the Hornets 60-47 in the second half to overcome a 12-point deficit late in the second quarter after Charlotte shot 52% from behind the 3-point line in the opening 24 minutes.
“I look at the second half, our defense, 23 and 24 points (in the third and fourth quarters),” Bucks head coach Doc Rivers said. “That’s the difference. We were scoring, we couldn’t get stops.”
For the second straight game, the Bucks held off a fourth quarter surge from the home team as the Hornets cut a 13-point deficit to five with 3 minutes, 12 seconds remaining. Then, Giannis Antetokounmpo checked back in to help the Bucks finish the game. Less than two minutes later, they were back up 11.
The star was again restricted to 25 minutes of action, but he scored 24 points on 7 of 12 shooting and made all six of his free throws.
“Just try to play hard as much as I’m in there,” he said. “Try to affect the game as much as I can. I think I keep myself to a high standard and I just want, when I’m out there, to make the right play for my teammate, if I can affect the game defensively, if I can affect the game offensively. It doesn’t matter if I play the 34 minutes or 36 I usually play or 24, I just want to, once I’m out there, make my presence be felt by my teammates, by the opponents. That’s my mindset.
“Right now, I don’t like when I play with minute restriction. I hate that. I feel like I’m being rushed and I gotta like set the tone and put the game away in such a short period of time. But at the end of the day right now I just want to make my presence felt.”
The Bucks were paced by Bobby Portis Jr.’s 25 points off the bench, while Myles Turner added 23 points and four blocked shots. Kevin Porter Jr. had 15 points and 11 assists while Ryan Rollins added 13 points and four assists.
Brandon Miller had 31 points for Charlotte and LaMelo Ball added 26.
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.
“Oh, man, yeah, it feels great,” Porter said. “It’s been since October. I mean, it’s gonna be January. That’s a long time. Hopefully we can make it three.”
Giannis Antetokounmpo was surprised to learn the team had that long of a drought between stacked victories and admitted, “Yeah, it feels good. It feels good, man. We’re getting back to our old selves.”
He would then transition his message, and offered up a thought on how the team could continue winning. The team can create a three-game winning streak by beating Washington, the second-worst team in the Eastern Conference, at home on Dec. 31.
But Antetokounmpo took the longer view at the month of January that begins with the team’s first west coast trip, includes a stop in San Antonio and ends with home games against Minnesota, Oklahoma City and Denver (among others).
“We’re a really good team,” he continued. “We just gotta get out of our feelings. I think we get in our feelings too easy. It starts with me. Everybody gotta get out of our feelings, man. When things don’t go well we can’t whine and complain or like demand for the ball, demand for a call or demand for things to go well. I mean, we haven’t earned nothing.
“Like, at the end of the day, you have to go out there and earn every single possession and put yourself in position to be successful. I love the two games we’ve played against Chicago, against Charlotte. We have another one against Washington.
“We have a great month of very tough games that it’s either going to make us or break us. And as long as I’m here, as long as I’m healthy I’m just gonna keep on helping the team, talking to them, be vocal in the locker room, be vocal on the bus, plane, practice, film session, games and try to make everybody believe that we gotta get out of this hole.”
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.
Now, the team must continue to claw it’s way back to a respectable record. And it will be difficult and probably consume most of what is left of the season. Last year, after the team started 2-8, it took eight games to get to .500 but it took 26 games to get to truly get over the hump at four games over.
“It’s going to be uncomfortable,” Antetokounmpo continued. “It’s going to be hard. It’s gonna hurt. We’re gonna get exhausted. But at the end of the day once we get back to where we need to go, it’s going to be worth it.”
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.
“We can’t necessarily kid ourselves – I think that it’s good that we won a couple in a row but we can’t be complacent,” Myles Turner said. “You gotta start from somewhere obviously so we’re tracking towards it. I think we did a much better job defensively tonight. We came in at halftime, made great adjustments. I think that overall the focus level has been up the past couple of games. Obviously having Giannis back helps a lot of different stuff but I think our focus has been in a good space.”
Heading into the game, Bucks had already has lost once to the Hornets, which meant a loss could have put the Bucks in jeopardy of losing the tiebreaker to the rebuilding team. Before the game, Rivers acknowledged his team’s record had 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.”
Bobby Portis Jr. leads strong bench performance
With Giannis Antetokounmpo returning to action, Bobby Portis Jr. has returned 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.
“(Moussa) Diabaté was in heavy drops and when I come DHO (dribble handoff) so the pick-and-pop was there,” Portis said. “And when he ran it was like a short close out, so just shoot the ball with confidence, hold your follow through. It was good to get off to a good start in the fourth quarter obviously ’cause we haven’t won two (games in a row) in a minute so we wanted to leave Charlotte with a dub.”
Though the Bucks did not use all-bench units, the reserves scored 43 points.
“There’s times this season where we could have been in that situation and the wheels may have fell off a little bit, but I attribute that to Ryan Rollins,” Turner said of those turning points with bench players mixed with some starters. “He came in the point guard position and made some good plays and he made some timely plays at that. He was able to get the team organized and got us where we needed to be.”
Gary Trent Jr. returned from missing a couple of games with a calf bruise to score nine points in reserve 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 12-point lead against the Bucks’ starters. But by halftime, Milwaukee trailed just 66-63.
“What we talk about is starting to show,” Bucks guard Kevin Porter Jr. said. “All year teams come together and always try to rally, try to rally, but we’re actually doing it now. At the end of the day we’re happy that Giannis is back but we still gotta step up be those players that were when he was out so his life can be easier.
“I think these last two games that he’s been back he’s been getting probably the easiest looks just off us being aggressive and finding him on the postups and he’s been able to play at his pace. Not slow, but very calm and very patient.
“I think all of us are just even keel right now and kind of got back after Christmas break and we’re all on one agenda.”
Did you notice?
With 7:54 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.
Doc Rivers passes George Karl in career coaching wins
The victory over the Hornets was the 1,176th of Doc Rivers’ coaching career, moving him past former Bucks coach and Hall of Famer George Karl for sixth all-time. Rivers is 79-72 with the Bucks after coaching Orlando (171 wins), Boston (416), the Los Angeles Clippers (356) and Philadelphia (154).
“I had no idea, it’s nice,” Rivers said after the game.
When told he passed Karl, Rivers said, “Oh! Wow, that’s cool. George is a hell of a coach. One of the best of all time.
“I’m just lucky. I’ve had great coaching. Honestly I’ve had some of the greatest coaches as my assistant coaches, from Ty Lue to Tom Thibodeau to all the guys I have on my staff now, Darvin (Ham) and Dave Jaeger and (Greg Buckner) and all the guys. And I’ve had really good players. You know what I’ve had is high character players. I’ve had teams that had no stars on it that made it to the playoffs. And it’s more just character. So I’ve been lucky. I’ve had a lot of good guys.”
Pat Riley is No. 5 all-time with 1,210 victories.
Rivers is in his 27th season as a head coach, and is once again eligible for the Hall of Fame this year. He is the only coach with at least a 1,000 victories that is not already enshrined.
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.