Milwaukee Bucks: Takeaways from 119-116 loss to Brooklyn Nets

The Milwaukee Bucks floundered against the heavy underdog Brooklyn Nets in a very strange Tuesday afternoon matchup in Orlando.

Was Tuesday’s early afternoon loss to the Brooklyn Nets the weirdest game of Mike Budenholzer’s tenure as Milwaukee Bucks head coach? If not, it likely only has the Bucks’ final game pre hiatus against the Denver Nuggets for competition.

Against a Nets team filled with little known to unknown NBA players, the Bucks made some changes of their own off the bat, but still fielded a starting lineup that included their All-Star duo of Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton, at least for the first half.

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In the second half, a more drastic lineup change occurred, though, and with it, the Bucks’ reserves were the ones tasked with trying to close the gap and ultimately overhaul the Nets.

Without ever looking particularly convincing or fluid, the Bucks’ lesser used players certainly gave it their best shot, and even did briefly pull ahead in the fourth quarter following a nice burst from D.J. Wilson, but it didn’t prove to be enough in the end.

The fact that the game wrapped up on another instance of terrible late game execution was far from ideal given what happened just a couple of days previously against the Rockets, but the Bucks still have bigger goals in mind and will look to move on pretty quickly.

With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at three key takeaways from the loss to Brooklyn.