An absolutely, unequivocally, monstrously disastrous\u2014which still might be putting it mildly\u2014second half by the Milwaukee Bucks snapped the Chicago Bulls\u2019 11-game losing streak Sunday afternoon at the United Center. The Bucks scored eight points in the fourth quarter. Eight. It\u2019s the first win for Chicago since January 31. They went 0-for-February, for crying out loud! Bobby Portis led Milwaukee with 18, and Collin Sexton had 22 for the victors.<\/p>\n
Myles Turner opened the game with back-to-back catch-and-shoot triples, propelling an early 8-0 Bucks run. Chicago tied the game midway through the period and were briefly in front, but Ryan Rollins and Cam Thomas splashed consecutive threes to stake Milwaukee ahead again. The Bulls knotted it up again twice inside the three minutes, though AJ Green and Cam Thomas answered each time to avoid falling behind. After one, the visitors led 32-30. Chicago took 21 shots in the first, and 18 came from deep.<\/p>\n
Both sides mostly traded buckets in the opening two minutes before a 17-0 Milwaukee run gave them their largest margin yet at 16, forcing a Billy Donovan timeout at the 6:34 mark. All five of the Bucks\u2019 field goals during that three-and-a-half-minute stretch were assisted. In the ensuing two minutes, the Bulls reduced their deficit to 10 thanks in part to two Bucks turnovers and a Bulls offensive rebound. Doc Rivers reassembled his starting lineup, and they suffered a couple similar miscues as Chicago cut it to seven\u2026 before a fast-break three from Green, plus the foul. He\u2019d hit another in the final minute, part of an 11-2 Bucks run that cemented their 66-51 halftime edge.<\/p>\n
After coughing the ball up seven times in the first half, the Bucks had six turnovers in the third\u2019s opening five minutes. Chicago capitalized, whittling Milwaukee\u2019s advantage to eight before Rivers finally called a timeout at 7:12. The starters kept bleeding points, and a couple missed layups by Kevin Porter Jr.\u2014who got T\u2019d up as he was subbed out\u2014didn\u2019t help, making it a one-point game inside five minutes. A sloppy game at that: the Bulls made a number of gaffes too. Bobby Portis scored 11 in the next three-ish minutes, helping them rebuild an eight-point lead. But poor defense in the final minute made it 89-87 Bucks entering the fourth, a 36-23 quarter in Chicago\u2019s favor.<\/p>\n
Matas Buzelis immediately evened the score, and Collin Sexton\u2019s jumper gave the Bulls their first lead since the clock read 10:57 back in the second. That was part of a 16-0 Chicago run spanning the quarter break, punctuated by Buzelis posterizing Ports at the rim, and Doc called his second timeout of the fourth exactly a minute after the first. The Bulls\u2019 run extended to 27-0\u2014twenty-seven to zero\u2014before a KPJ free throw finally gave the Bucks their first points in 6:32 of gameplay. More stinky defense and shot selection put Chicago up 19 before Doc waived the white flag as Gary Trent Jr. and Gary Harris came to the scorers\u2019 table with under five minutes to go. The Bulls kept mopping the floor with the Bucks, finishing the game on a 39-8 run going back to the final minute of the third.<\/p>\n
There are several ways to go here, but we\u2019re going with Milwaukee\u2019s utter ineptitude shooting the ball in the second half: 10\/47 from the floor. \u201cGood\u201d for 21.3%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An absolutely, unequivocally, monstrously disastrous\u2014which still might be putting it mildly\u2014second half by the Milwaukee Bucks snapped the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3775],"tags":[7,103,52326,102,121,3871,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-633231","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-bucks-scores","11":"tag-milwaukee","12":"tag-milwaukee-bucks","13":"tag-milwaukeebucks","14":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116156447408338195","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633231","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=633231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}