Milwaukee Bucks: Takeaways from 108-94 loss to Golden State Warriors

The ball was moving, until it wasn’t

The Bucks have had a stagnant offense for the majority of the season as there are negligible amounts of off-ball movement and non-efficient shots taken that leave much to be desired. However, the Bucks came out of the gate slinging the basketball around the court, which resulted in good shots.

Giannis Antetokounmpo, in particular, seemed particularly involved off-ball as he was constantly moving around and making hard cuts that opened up the rest of the offense. This energy and effort allowed Milwaukee to go toe-to-toe with the Warriors until the fourth quarter, which is when things started to go awry.

With the Bucks leading 82-80 at the beginning of the final period, it was surprising to see head coach Jason Kidd shift his offense away from the one that had worked thus far. Maybe it was because the players were tired, but there was not nearly as much movement in the offense as there was earlier during their run to keep the Warriors on their toes.

Antetokounmpo, along with Malcolm Brogdon and Eric Bledsoe, were the only ones to score in the fourth as each player put up four points in the period, respectively. A total of three assists in the fourth quarter was a result of players holding onto the ball for too long, with Matthew Dellavedova being the biggest culprit in that regard, possibly thinking this was the 2015 NBA Finals.

The good thing is that Milwaukee might have finally found a way to properly run an offense with their personnel, as they had an offensive rating of 118.2 points per 100 possessions in the first three quarters of action, per NBA.com/stats. The bad is that the Bucks had an offensive rating of 48.2 points per 100 possessions in the fourth quarter alone when they looked to be running their standard offense.