Milwaukee Bucks Game Preview: March 29 at Golden State Warriors
By Adam McGee
Major key for Milwaukee – Don’t gift the game away
If the Bucks come away from Thursday’s game with a loss having been within range down the stretch, they need to be able to say they at least made the Warriors beat them.
On Tuesday in Los Angeles, the Bucks put together some really strong passages of play to come back and apparently seize the initiative in the second half, only to be undone by strange rotation decisions and a comedy of errors in trying to defend the three-point line in the final seven minutes of the fourth quarter.
Even against a depleted Golden State team, there will only be less margin for error.
In spite of being far from free-flowing and not even close to fully optimized, the Bucks’ offense has generally been effective throughout the course of the season, as their eighth place rank in offensive rating indicates.
A spread of above average talent generally allows Milwaukee to score alongside even the league’s best offenses. That allows a little more room for the kind of shaky defense that Milwaukee frequently demonstrates, but not for careless mistakes and mental lapses at crucial moments.
Reducing turnovers and tightening up three-point defense would certainly benefit the Bucks overall, but even just eliminating errors in those departments in the game’s final quarter could lead to major improvements.
In other words, if the Bucks don’t shoot themselves in the foot on Thursday night, they’ll have a chance.