Milwaukee Bucks: Takeaways from 136-132 loss to Dallas Mavericks
The Milwaukee Bucks suffered yet another rough collapse in regulation and eventually fell to the Dallas Mavericks in overtime on Saturday night, who were led by an all-time Luka Doncic performance.
The Milwaukee Bucks quickly returned to the loss column after falling late to the Dallas Mavericks in a 136-132 overtime defeat Saturday night in Orlando.
The tone was set early by the Mavericks, thanks to their wunderkind star, Luka Doncic, and the Bucks spent all of the first quarter battling back to level up with the red-hot shooting Mavericks. Eventually, the Bucks’ great close to the opening period helped them come within 3 of the Mavericks, who led 35-32 at the end of one.
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Dallas raced back out to hold their biggest lead of the night (11) not long into the second quarter.
It was from there where the Bucks, through the magic of Brook Lopez, snapped out of their malaise and stormed back to take control of the contest and drop a 39-point second quarter on the Mavs. That led to Milwaukee taking a 71-62 edge into halftime.
That break eventually went on to cool the Bucks’ offensive outburst as they sank back into their arrhythmic offense that defined much of their play throughout the third quarter. That, in turn, opened the door for the Mavericks to retake the lead, which was 93-91 through three.
Milwaukee continued to scrap and keep within distance of the Mavericks, eventually breaking through once again midway through the fourth quarter. A run of buckets from the likes of George Hill, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Eric Bledsoe put the Bucks up by 7 with under two-and-a-half minutes to go.
But they went cold once again and while the Mavericks didn’t just hit a flood of buckets, they managed to tied it up at 119 with 21 seconds to go after Doncic hit two free throws. A wide-open look for Hill went awry on the last possession in regulation and the Bucks and Mavericks needed one more period to resolve this one.
Dallas struck first with back-to-back threes near the three-minute mark and the Bucks had to play the same catch up that defined their night. Easy looks for Antetokounmpo went down at the basket and a Khris Middleton triple brought the Bucks within 2 of the Mavericks with under 90 seconds to go, but that’s as far as they came to testing them in what remained of the game.
So without further ado, let’s examine what stood out throughout the Bucks’ loss to the Dallas Mavericks from Saturday night, starting with the leading performance of Brook Lopez.