The Golden State Warriors (59-13) visited the BMO Harris Bradley Center to face the Milwaukee Bucks (36-36) tonight, vying for the Number One seed in the Western Conference Playoffs, as well as their 60th win of the season.
Warriors head coach Steve Kerr decided to rest forwards Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala for this game, starting David Lee in place of Green. Center Ognjen Kuzmic was still on assignment in Santa Cruz.
The Bucks were without forwards Damien Inglis (ankle surgery) and Jabari Parker (knee surgery).
It being a Saturday night, Golden State wore their “slate” jerseys.
1ST QUARTER: Bucks Make Up Poor Shooting With Free Throws
The Warriors got off to a typical systematic start as David Lee scored the team’s first two points on a “tic-tac-toe” from Andrew Bogut to Stephen Curry then to Lee for a layup.
Both teams did well to score on their possessions, be they from shots or the free throw line. The Dubs hit two treys early, with Harrison Barnes from the left corner facilitated by a Curry cut to the lane after Bogut posted up on the low right block.
Then Curry victimized Michael Carter-Williams with a start-stop cross-over beyond the arc, dropping the three-pointer as Carter-Williams bit too hard and couldn’t recover.
Right after that, Bogut emphatically volleyball-swatted Zaza Pachulia downward, but then Pachulia blocked Klay Thompson‘s three-point try from the top. Curry recovered the loose ball past the halfcourt line, dribbled up to the right elbow, got double-teamed, and delivered a laser pass to Bogut underneath the rim.
That gave the Warriors an early 14-6 lead with 8:25 to go in the first period.
But Thompson would take himself out of the game after a quick foul, his second personal, on a jump-shooting Pachulia. Kerr went with Brandon Rush as the first sub off the bench, for Klay.
Bogut then went through a funk, as Carter-Williams slipped past Curry on the dribble and Bogut never committed to the help, yielding an uncontested two-hand slam for the former Rookie Of The Year and recent acquisition from the Philadelphia 76ers.
He then failed to catch a pass in the paint from Curry on the baseline and Giannis Antetokounmpo finished the run-out fastbreak. Then after Steph anticipated a pass inside, left his man, and stole the pass, Bogut made a bad pass, then with Antetokounmpo charging ahead for the fastbreak, committed an intentional foul too hard with his forearm. The referees reviewed the play and said it was a Flagrant One violation.
Pachulia then made a put-shot and the Bucks were back in business, up 16-14, approaching the halfway point of the quarter.
After Lee made a nifty move in the left block to get a bankshot to fall over Ersan Ilyasova, the Warriors couldn’t put together any consistency, as Curry lost his dribble on a crossover trying to go between-the-legs and Barnes followed that up with a coast-to-coast attempt, but drove the left side of the lane and lost the ball out of bounds.
Curry missed a long two and James McAdoo, who got an early call off the bench by Kerr ahead of Festus Ezeli, got swatted by John Henson, although McAdoo’s drive to the hole was aggressive.
Steph then lost the ball again on the dribble crossover trying to go behind-the-back and, after a few misses by both teams, Justin Holiday back-rimmed an open trey and Curry fouled Ilyasova on the rebound, by accident almost and a little bit hard.
That sent Ilyasova to the line. The Warriors were holding the Bucks to just 26% from the field, but Ilaysova’s free throws gave Milwaukee a total of 12 trips to the charity stripe.
During this time, Rush went to the locker room due to an eye contusion and was ruled questionable for his return to the game.
The Warriors made a couple of nice plays, but they were generally few and far between. Curry found Holiday for a trey from the right elbow on a pass that seemed to shift around defending hands in mid-air, and Steph had a step-through layup in traffic for an and-one against Jared Dudley helping out.
That gave Golden State a 24-22 lead with 38.3 seconds remaining, then Antetokounmpo attacked hard, Curry retreated step-by-step, and forced a jumpball that resulted in one of two free throws as the “Greek Freak” easily won the jump and drew a shooting foul on McAdoo to end the quarter.
The Warriors held a slim 24-23 lead heading into the second quarter.
2ND QUARTER: Clank!
Marreese Speights went into #MoBucket5 mode and tallied 8 points in the first five minutes of play on three jumpers and two free throws, but the rest of the bench unit’s performance bordered on ugly, as both teams had trouble finding the bottom of the net until the starters came back in.
But the good news was, just before Curry checked back in with 4:16 remaining and the Warriors up 40-30 — after more than a minute-and-a-half of no scoring from either team — Leandro Barbosa stole the ball picked a baseline inbound pass from Jerryd Bayless and finished with a smart, outstretched finger roll as he looked back and shielded the defender.
Bucks head coach Jason Kidd called timeout and Kerr put in Festus Ezeli for the first time and re-inserted Rush, who was okay from his eye contusion diagnosis.
Curry duped Carter-Williams into a foul from beyond the arc, then after Khris Middleton airballed a jumper, Steph got a hand-off from Ezeli from about thirty feet on the right elbow and launched, draining the extra-deep three-pointer.
But while Pachulia got a couple of flat-footed jumpers to the Warriors shot themselves in the foot to end the half, as Curry dribbled, stopped, and made an overhead pass that went directly to Middleton, who got it to Tyler Ennis, who fed Antetokounmpo for an easy run-out dunk.
Middleton added an impressive cut down the lane and dunk over Ezeli, and Curry added his 4th turnover of the night with another bad pass, this time stolen by Bayless, but the Bucks couldn’t make the Warriors pay, as Steph fouled Bayless immediately and escaped anymore harm than a common foul after the officials reviewed the tape to determine it was not a clear-path foul.
To the Warriors credit, the Bucks shot just 12-for-45 for the half (27%), although Curry missed the Dubs’ last possession at the buzzer, launching a thirty-footer from the right hashmark that barely hit glass.
Golden State took a 48-38 lead into the second half. Curry led the anemic scoring on the night with 11 points and 4 assists, Klay only had 4 points on just 1-for-5 field and 0-for-2 downtown, and Speights was impactful again with 8 points, 5 rebounds off the bench. Bogut led the defense with 3 blocked shots.
Middleton and Pachulia led Milwaukee with 10 points apiece while Ilyasova, who had scored a career-high 34 points two nights prior, was 0-for-7 from the floor, 0-for-3 from downtown, and only 4 total points.
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