The Milwaukee Bucks just keep on surprising, beating the (admittedly bruised) Oklahoma City Thunder 110-93. Ousmane Dieng led the Bucks with 19 points, six assists, 11 rebounds, and four blocks! That said, Milwaukee had seven guys reach double digits, which is amazing. Isaiah Joe was probably the Thunder\u2019s best player, dropping 17 points. Also, a big shoutout to Nikola Topic, who played his first NBA game tonight after undergoing treatment for testicular cancer. Salute.<\/p>\n
The Bucks were able to keep the Thunder at arm\u2019s distance throughout the opening quarter, with AJ Green and Kevin Porter Jr. scoring 12 of Milwaukee\u2019s first 16 points. With both SGA and Jalen Williams out, the Thunder stayed in it through the three-ball, with their first nine points coming from deep; Isaiah Joe was spectacular early for OKC, scoring 11 of their first 20. The Bucks built a small edge to close the quarter, highlighted by an Andre Jackson Jr. put-back slam from the clouds, leading 30-25 after one.<\/p>\n
Milwaukee extended its lead to open the second, clearly identifying that the newly acquired Jared McCain could not guard AJ Green, who knocked some threes down in quick succession. However, two big triples from Alex Caruso kept the Thunder close initially, with him later hitting another to cap an 8-0 run and tie the game at 40, four minutes in. The Bucks, however, would respond in a major way, going on an extended 20-4 run! How? Well, the visitors ran a great offence and took advantage of the smaller Thunder lineup, which allowed them to set their defence and force OKC to play in the half-court. The Thunder got some stops to close the half, reducing the deficit to 12, Bucks up 67-55.<\/p>\n
Scoring slowed significantly for both teams for most of the third. It was a brick-fest until the final few minutes of the period. The Thunder were getting by on Lue Dort self-created buckets, which never seemed very sustainable, while it was a lot of KPJ and Cam Thomas for the Bucks. Milwaukee\u2019s lead remained at around 10 for most of the quarter, but it was later in the third when some exciting stuff started to happen. Ousmane Dieng nailed a step-back triple, followed by a mid-range jumper off the empty-side pick-and-roll, followed by a Connaughton-esque no-dip three. The Ous\u2019 is loose! This was the run that allowed the Bucks to grab a major edge heading into the fourth, up 89-73.<\/p>\n
Believe it or not, the Bucks delivered the knockout blow in the opening 1:29 of the final frame, with AJ Green cashing his fifth triple of the night, followed by Pete Nance knocking his third to put the visitors up 22! OKC would make a few shots to get it down to the 16-point mark, but the Bucks had an answer at every turn (and it truly was a bunch of different contributors). What really stood out is the way Milwaukee was moving the ball; I haven\u2019t seen them cause rotation after rotation like that in a long time. What a game; what a win.<\/p>\n
I mean, Dieng\u2019s four blocks stand out to me. If he can become a true plus on defence\u2026 man, that trade could be a steal. Not counting my chickens before they hatch, but it\u2019s exciting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Milwaukee Bucks just keep on surprising, beating the (admittedly bruised) Oklahoma City Thunder 110-93. Ousmane Dieng led…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":600835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3783],"tags":[7,52326,6,310,475,179,3966,3965,312],"class_list":{"0":"post-600834","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oklahoma-city-thunder","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-bucks-scores","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-oklahoma","12":"tag-oklahoma-city","13":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","14":"tag-oklahomacity","15":"tag-oklahomacitythunder","16":"tag-thunder"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116063380796661567","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600834","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=600834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/600835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}