3 Takeaways from Milwaukee Bucks win over Dallas Mavericks

The Milwaukee Bucks defeated the Dallas Mavericks Sunday night at Fiserv Forum, the lone time the Mavericks will travel to Milwaukee this season. In previous seasons former Bucks’ coach Jason Kidd and the Dallas Mavericks have had some back and forth, the teams split the last two seasons.

The Mavericks were on the second of a back to back but it didn’t show until the fourth quarter, when the Bucks started to really separate and hold their lead. Let’s look at some takeaways from this matchup:

Takeaways from Milwaukee Bucks win over Dallas Mavericks: The Bucks threw everything but the kitchen sink at Luka Doncic

This game was a matchup of MVP candidates and neither disappointed, Giannis Antetokounmpo finished with 30 points and Luka Doncic with 27, both over 50 percent on field goals. When it came to defending Luka, the Milwaukee Bucks started with their best perimeter defender, Jrue Holiday guarding him. Undoubtedly, Dallas set approximately 10,001 screens for Luka looking to get him into space where a defender would be forced with the decision to step up and allow a pass or drop back and let Luka shoot floaters.

The Milwaukee Bucks had 10 players that played eight minutes or more, and all 10 of them spent at least some time guarding Luka Doncic, albeit not intentionally but more so on switching some of the endless screens set by Dallas trying to create mismatches for their superstar.

Of the 10 players that guarded Luka, Brook Lopez and Bobby Portis held him to a combined 2-of-7 shooting, their size no doubt making it hard to get clean looks at the basket. As previously mentioned, Jrue Holiday spent a lion’s share of the total minutes spent guarding Luka. Just under eight total minutes, in that time Luka made 4-of-9 shots and had eight assists but also four turnovers, could be better for the Bucks, but considering you’re facing the MVP frontrunner, it could also be much worse.