The Milwaukee Bucks battled, but were unable to extinguish the Miami Heat, losing 112-95 as the Heat won their seventh straight game. Despite not having Tyler Herro, the Heat pulled through because of Pelle Larson, who had a career-high 28 points. Giannis Antetokounmpo\u2019s 31 points were not enough.<\/p>\n
A new starting lineup was rolled out for Milwaukee: Kevin Porter Jr. returned and started in place of Ryan Rollins. The Bucks began the game sluggishly on offense, unable to get any easy looks near the rim. Miami slowly extended its lead as the quarter progressed, while Milwaukee continued to struggle to generate any good offense, dribbling the ball excessively, which resulted in turnovers. Bobby Portis did his bit to come in and provide something on that end, but the Heat had an answer at every turn. Milwaukee trailed 31-21 after the first quarter<\/p>\n
The second quarter was much better for Milwaukee, as they found their rhythm on both ends (the Heat went four minutes without a field goal). Bobby Portis hit some jumpers, and Taurean Prince scored his first points since returning from neck surgery. Giannis found a breakthrough too, throwing down some dunks and asserting his will. The Bucks\u2019 three-ball was falling (primarily from Rollins and Turner), which helped them come back to tie the game at 51. However, Miami would end the final two minutes on an 8-0 run, taking a 59-51 lead into halftime.<\/p>\n
Milwaukee continued its trend of starting the third quarter flat-footed as Miami scored a quick five points. The Bucks didn\u2019t score a field goal for the first four and a half minutes\u2014and 7 minutes of game time between the second and third quarters\u2014before Giannis finally broke the drought. Milwaukee\u2019s bench reduced the deficit somewhat, going on an 11-2 run in a three-minute stretch, but the Bucks still ended the third quarter trailing 85-77.<\/p>\n
The bench (plus Giannis) continued to slowly chip away at the Heat\u2019s lead to open the fourth. After not scoring for the first three quarters, Kyle Kuzma scored five straight points to get the visitors within just two points halfway through the fourth as the Bucks went on a 10-2 run, forcing a Miami timeout halfway through the frame. Milwaukee kept it close throughout the fourth quarter\u2014getting back to that two-point margin later after a Jericho Sims and-one\u2014but the Heat kept getting to the charity stripe and extending the lead. Still, the Bucks had a shot with less than a minute remaining to tie the game with a three; the problem was\u2026 it was Giannis who shot it (with heaps of time left on the shot clock, I might add). The Heat got the rebound, came down, and kicked it out to Pelle Larsson, who made his three. Game over.<\/p>\n
The only reason the Bucks were even in this game was because of their bench. Milwaukee\u2019s bench scored 56 points\u2014led by Bobby Portis with 19\u2014and outscored all the non-Giannis starters combined.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Milwaukee Bucks battled, but were unable to extinguish the Miami Heat, losing 112-95 as the Heat won…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3778],"tags":[7,52326,144,295,189,3881,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-655549","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami-heat","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-bucks-scores","10":"tag-heat","11":"tag-miami","12":"tag-miami-heat","13":"tag-miamiheat","14":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116219660399720748","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655549","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=655549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}