By Tennie Sumague
EBC New York Bureau
NEW YORK (Eagle News) – The Brooklyn Nets showed they “Fear the Deer” Saturday evening in their lopsided 117-97 loss to the best team in the NBA – the Milwaukee Bucks.
Milwaukee’s defense made Brooklyn look cold, holding the short-handed Nets to 33% shooting. The Bucks never trailed after the first quarter, shot 50% from the field and easily won their sixth-straight game. Milwaukee was three points short of their fifth-consecutive 120+ point performance.
“Brooklyn is a team that drives it a ton, like everybody in the league, a lot of pick-and-rolls too,” said Bucks coach, Mike Budenholzer. “ I thought the discipline in just getting over screens, playing without fouling, making them uncomfortable, making them hopefully get to spots that they don’t want to be in. Brook Lopez is always good in the paint. Giannis [Antetokounmpo] was good in the paint.”
Reigning MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo finished with 29 points and 12 rebounds in 25 minutes. Kris Middleton added 20 points to help the Bucks to a league best 38-6 record. Milwaukee is on pace to win 70 games, an accomplishment that only two teams have done in league history – the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors and 1995-96 Chicago Bulls.
“We’ve got to keep getting better game by game,” said Antetokoumpo. “I think we’re in a great place, but we’ve got to play great basketball for 48 minutes and not for a quarter or two quarters. We’ve got to get ourselves to a place where we can compete for 48 minutes, be sharp for 48 minutes.”
The struggling Nets have lost three straight games and their road to climbing back to the .500 mark will be challenging. They host the Philadelphia 76ers on Martin Luther King Day Monday afternoon and LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers come to town on Thursday. With the various injuries plaguing key players, (Joe Harris – lower back, DeAndre Jordan – dislocated middle finger, Garrett Temple – right knee) staying healthy is a priority for the rest of the team to finish strong before the All-Star break.
“We’re going to put obviously our effort out there and galvanize each other as a group,” said Nets guard Kyrie Irving. “Just going to try to keep positivity in the locker room and also developing that principle of becoming a great team. Heading to the All-Star break , you wanna have these good games, these great tests, see what you can learn from them and move forward.”
(Eagle News Service)