The Milwaukee Bucks rung in the start to their 2019-20 season with an impressive comeback victory over the Houston Rockets Thursday night.
After trailing by as many as 16 points midway through the game, the Milwaukee Bucks put on quite the show Thursday night as they came back to defeat the Houston Rockets in a 117-111 win to open their regular season account.
Nearly everything went wrong for the Bucks as soon as the game tipped off, which included starting point guard Eric Bledsoe drawing two early fouls. Two fouls soon followed for Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks had to claw their way back from a double-digit deficit nearly three and a half minutes into the contest.
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Milwaukee was able to shake off their early rust and make some headway in that department as they trailed the Rockets 30-23 at the end of one.
However, their comeback pursuit was derailed as they struggled to defend the three-point line and the Rockets built up their lead back into double digits to lead the Bucks 66-50.
The halftime interval suited the Bucks well as they slowly laid the foundation to their second half comeback by drawing their deficit back down to single digits all throughout the third quarter.
Down 87-78 to open up the fourth quarter, it was the 1-2 punch of Antetokounmpo and veteran Bucks forward Ersan Ilyasova that helped them take their first, albeit brief, lead at the 8:34 mark of the fourth quarter. The Rockets clearly didn’t back down from the Bucks’ comeback attempt by scoring on successive attempts to regain the lead, but a triple from Khris Middleton with nearly six-and-a-half minutes to go gave the Bucks the lead permanently from that point on.
All there was left to do was to secure the victory and the Bucks relied on a whole host of veteran contributors such as Brook Lopez and Wes Matthews to do the trick, especially without their superstar, Antetokounmpo, who succumbed to foul trouble with more than five minutes to go.
So without further ado, let’s dive into what stood out in the Bucks’ impressive comeback win over the Houston Rockets from Thursday night.