Milwaukee Bucks: Takeaways from 102-96 win over Minnesota Timberwolves

Slow Starts

In totality, Thursday night’s game was very close. Milwaukee won by a margin of six, and the end of the game was thrilling. How the game got to that point, however, is another matter.

Minnesota led comfortably for the majority of the game, as the Bucks didn’t take their first lead until 2:25 in the fourth quarter. The huge defecit was due in large part to Milwaukee’s slow starts. The Timberwolves outscored the Bucks 37-17 in the opening six minutes of each half on Thursday night, outscoring Minnesota by 26 for the rest of the contest.

For Minnesota, it was the bench that let the team down. The starting unit for the Timberwolves had all positive point differentials, with the exception of Jimmy Butler who recorded a -2.

It’s hard not to be skeptical as a Bucks fan that a huge reason for Milwaukee’s late game heroics were due to Minnesota’s fatigue. Minnesota was playing the second game of a back-to-back and clearly did not have the same energy when the Bucks made their second half push.

The Timberwolves are also built top-heavy. While some of the loss can be blamed to fatigue, credit still should be given to the Bucks for punishing the Wolves’ bench. The Bucks have had depth problems throughout the year, so it was nice to see them finally picking on the opponents lesser options too.