Milwaukee Bucks: Recap of 125-107 win over Minnesota Timberwolves

The Milwaukee Bucks cruised to their second straight preseason win by taking care of the Minnesota Timberwolves in front of the Iowan faithful in Hilton Coliseum Sunday night.

Taking the show on the road to the Hawkeye State, the Milwaukee Bucks fended off the Minnesota Timberwolves with relative ease and notched their second straight win of the preseason by winning 125-107 Sunday night.

Playing what was a preseason tilt that was neither seen nor heard outside of the Hilton Coliseum in Ames, Iowa, the Bucks and Wolves got off to solid starts offensively in the opening minutes of the first quarter as they were tied at 13 at the first stoppage in play at the 6:26 mark.

It was the Bucks, though, that found their groove throughout the last half of the first and went on a 20-10 run to close out the quarter and take a 33-23 lead going into the second period. The Bucks wouldn’t look back from there and continued to add to their edge over the Wolves throughout the second by leading well into double digits.

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With that said, the Wolves, namely Karl-Anthony Towns, propelled his squad to get out of their malaise and make it a game once again as the second quarter wore on, which helped fuel his efficient 33-point performance on the night.

Despite the Wolves’ late quarter push, the Bucks went into halftime holding a 62-55 lead.

The Bucks promptly shook off their late first half stumbles during the halftime break and reinforced their control over the game by building their lead back into double-digits in the first few minutes of the third quarter.

That was helped by Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo turning around his first half scoring inefficiencies as he went on to finish with a team-high 21 points on 8-of-15 shooting from the field (1-of-3 from three, 4-for-6 from the line), 10 rebounds, two assists as well as two steals, a block and a turnover in more than 26 and a half minutes of action.

Of course, the Wolves did their best to put the Bucks back on their heels once again throughout the third, but the Bucks did a much better job of rebuffing the Wolves’ comeback attempt, considering they held a 98-82 lead after three.

Looking to finish off the Wolves for good heading into the fourth and final frame, new Bucks head coach Mike Budenholzer opted to keep the likes of Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton and Eric Bledsoe in the game to add to their growing preseason workload against the Towns-less Wolves.

That strategy unsurprisingly led to the Bucks protecting and adding to their lead, which stood as high as 21 points at the 7:04 mark in the fourth, before Coach Bud pulled all three of Antetokounmpo, Middleton and Bledsoe at the 6:14 mark.

From there, the Bucks’ clean up crew closed out the tilt with ease and even improved the team’s faring from downtown for good measure (the Bucks finished the night connecting on 36.1 percent of their 36 looks from beyond the arc).

Another theme throughout the night was the stop-start play that defined much of the contest, thanks to the incessant number of foul calls that were called by the game’s officiating crew.

To their credit, the Bucks capitalized on the number of calls that went their way by going 28-of-36 from the line and edged out the Wolves’ performance in this department for the game as they finished 21-for-32 from the charity stripe.

The Bucks’ offense was also boosted by their ability to force the Wolves into precarious spots that led to them coughing up the ball. On the night, the Bucks scored 27 points off of the Wolves’ 19 turnovers (by comparison, the Wolves scored 13 points off of the Bucks 10 turnovers during the contest).

One particular area of concern for the Bucks stood in the rebounding category. While the Wolves out-rebounded the Bucks 54-45 for the preseason duel, it was the Wolves’ ability to garner 17 reloads on the offensive glass that helped fuel their offense as they put down 18 second chance points.

The Bucks nearly neutralized the Wolves’ second chance scoring output with 16 points of their own, but after they looked pretty impressive as a team cleaning up on the glass throughout their first preseason game, the Wolves’ collective steel in this regard caused a few problems for the Bucks as they looked to close down possessions on the defensive end more crisply.

The Bucks will be back in preseason action on Tuesday night when they visit the Oklahoma City Thunder for a 7p.m. CT tilt at Chesapeake Energy Arena.