Milwaukee Bucks: Takeaways from 116-97 loss to Cleveland Cavaliers

The Milwaukee Bucks fell away in the second half of their home opener against the Cleveland Cavaliers, and there was plenty of note to take away from the game.

Fueled by the success of the Milwaukee Bucks on Wednesday against Boston, and last season’s playoff series against Toronto, the Bradley Center was in a raucous mood on Friday night as they hoped to see their team claim another significant scalp in the home opener.

Like the Bucks, the Cleveland Cavaliers opened up their season with a win over the Boston Celtics, and as such this game marked a very early chance for two of the Eastern Conference’s best teams to get the better of another rival.

Following his heroics in the season opener, the spotlight was arguably brighter than ever on Giannis Antetokounmpo as his trajectory as the potential successor to Cleveland’s LeBron James was widely discussed.

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At this point it was no surprise that such talk did little to distract the Bucks’ star from the task at hand, as he picked up where he left off on Wednesday by causing Cleveland all kinds of problems straight out of the gate.

As a unit, the Bucks looked equally impressive through the first half and for the early stages of the third, before it all went wrong in record time thanks to defensive deficiencies of old.

Before everyone moves their focus on to Saturday’s game against the Portland Trail Blazers, let’s take a look at what went right and went wrong for the Bucks on Friday.