The Milwaukee Bucks defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers Friday night at Fiserv Forum for the second time in two tries, going back to their first matchup last Wednesday. Certainly some similarities in the two matchups like a hot start shooting for Cleveland, dominant second half defense and block parties by Brook Lopez.
The Milwaukee Bucks were down by 11 points at halftime and outscored the Cavaliers 35-10 in the third quarter and held Cleveland to just 39 points in the entire second half! In their first matchup, the Bucks held the Cavaliers to 18 points in the third and 20 points in the fourth for a total of just 38 points in the second half. Whatever adjustments Head Coach Mike Budenholzer made at halftime against this Cleveland team have paid dividends for the Bucks and created a nightmare for the Cavaliers.
Let’s look at three takeaways from this Milwaukee Bucks win:
Takeaways from Milwaukee Bucks win over Cleveland Cavaliers: Brook Lopez is hosting a block party
Brook Lopez as mentioned previously, has done very well defending the interior in the two matchups with the Cavaliers. In the first matchup last Wednesday, Brook recorded three blocks, in Friday night’s matchup he doubled that to six blocks, tying his season high. Interestingly, the other game he recorded six blocks in a game was against the Brooklyn Nets, another game where the Bucks trailed by double digits at halftime and came back to win.
Brook Lopez recorded two of his six blocks against budding star Evan Mobley and held the young power forward to just 1-of-5 shooting from the floor.
Brook didn’t score a ton but the shooting he did, he did efficiently. Brook made all three of his shot attempts, including two 3-pointers and finished with eight points and four rebounds to go with his six blocks.