MILWAUKEE \u2013 Riding a five-game losing National Basketball Association (NBA) streak after an unsuccessful road trip, the Milwaukee Bucks start a three-game homestand where fans in Milwaukee are likely more focused on what might happen off the court than on it.<\/p>\n
With the trade deadline looming on Feb 5 and the rumours surrounding currently injured superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo only getting louder, Milwaukee will begin the home stretch by hosting the Chicago Bulls on Feb 3 (Feb 4 morning, Singapore time).<\/p>\n
On their road trip, the Bucks competed against Philadelphia and Washington until ultimately falling short late in both of those games. On Feb 1 in Boston, it was not as close. The team scored their fewest points in a game all season, losing 107-79 to the Celtics.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to create shots. Whenever we took (Ryan Rollins) off the floor, Bobby (Portis) off the floor, the scoring came to a halt,\u201d Bucks coach Doc Rivers said of his side\u2019s problems. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re struggling and you start missing shots, it starts to snowball. That\u2019s what I felt.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rollins led his Bucks team playing without Antetokounmpo or second-leading scorer Kevin Porter Jr. (oblique) with 25 points and seven assists. <\/p>\n
He averages 16.5 points and 5.5 assists, while Portis has been a consistent scoring threat, averaging 13.2 points and is among the league leaders in three-point percentage (45.2).<\/p>\n
Rollins is hardly the solution, however, if he were to carry the weight on his shoulders all by himself.<\/p>\n
Without Antetokounmpo and Porter, the Bucks are missing a combined 44.8 points and 13 assists per game.<\/p>\n
Chicago arrive in Milwaukee after facing the Miami Heat in each of their last three games. Miami won two of those matchups, including a dominant 134-91 effort in the finale on Feb 1.<\/p>\n
In that game, the Bulls shot just 6-for-41 (14.6 per cent) from beyond the arc and 32.2 per cent from the floor.<\/p>\n
The clash with the Bucks is Chicago\u2019s final game prior to the 3pm trade deadline on Feb 5. <\/p>\n
The team have nine players on expiring contracts, including Coby White, Nikola Vucevic and Kevin Huerter, making them a team to watch.<\/p>\n
Chicago have already been part of a move, acquiring Dario Saric in a three-team trade with Cleveland and Sacramento. Chicago sent Emanuel Miller to Cleveland in the deal and also waived Jevon Carter.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve heard nothing but great things (on Saric),\u201d Bulls coach Billy Donovan said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always loved his IQ, his feel for the game. He hasn\u2019t been in the rotation a whole lot this year, but a veteran guy that\u2019s been around, in terms of getting him caught up to speed in terms of what we do, I\u2019d imagine it\u2019ll be pretty simple for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Josh Giddey leads Chicago averaging 18.6 points and 8.8 assists per night. Vucevic leads down low averaging nine rebounds along with nearly 17 points per game.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile in NBA action on Monday, Alperen Sengun matched his season high with 39 points and helped seal a 118-114 Houston Rockets win over the Indiana Pacers with the last of his game-high 16 rebounds in Indianapolis.<\/p>\n
Sengun picked up the offensive slack for a Houston team down Kevin Durant, a late scratch due to a left ankle sprain.\u00a0Amen Thompson joined Sengun in recording a double-double, grabbing 11 rebounds to go with his 16 points. He also dished seven assists. REUTERS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILWAUKEE \u2013 Riding a five-game losing National Basketball Association (NBA) streak after an unsuccessful road trip, the Milwaukee…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":578882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3775],"tags":[7,103,102,121,3871,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-578881","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-milwaukee-bucks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-bucks","10":"tag-milwaukee","11":"tag-milwaukee-bucks","12":"tag-milwaukeebucks","13":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116005012056989154","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=578881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/578882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}