No Giannis, no Khris, and somehow yet again, no problem. The Milwaukee Bucks moved to 4-1 in games where the team’s top two players haven’t been in the lineup, dismissing the Utah Jazz at Fiserv Forum on Saturday night, 123-97.
With Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton both nursing knee soreness, Milwaukee nonetheless took down a team coming off back-to-back wins against one of the Western Conference frontrunners, New Orleans, and did so thanks in large part to an overwhelming advantage on the boards, 54-29, and another big-time performance from Bobby Portis (22 points, 14 rebounds).
Box score:Bucks 123, Jazz 97
Jrue Holiday returns and shakes off the rust with personal 10-0 run
Jrue Holiday, the lone member of Milwaukee’s “Big Three” to play, started 0 for 5 from the field and didn’t score until 5:54 remained in the second quarter. But that was the start of a personal 10-0 run, and his 3-pointer from the corner suddenly put the Bucks up, 52-42, with 4:42 left before the break.
Holiday, who finished with 21 points, missed Milwaukee’s last two games with illness.
“His first stretch probably was working out the rust a little bit and man, he caught a great rhythm,” Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer said. “We needed it. (Malik) Beasley had hit two threes in a row and they closed without us scoring. It felt like Jrue did it a lot of different ways, hit a couple threes in there and looked like himself.”
Holiday also had a team-best eight assists.
Bobby Portis scores 15 points in the first quarter alone to light the fire
Portis hit 6 of 10 shots in the first quarter for 15 points, and even though he didn’t add to that ledger in the second half, he was a big reason why the Bucks never trailed by more than two points at any point. No other Bucks player had more than four points in the opening quarter.
“He was really special,” Budenholzer said, adding that Portis’ success convinced Budenholzer to junk his original substitution plan. “I didn’t want to take him out of the game and just let him keep going. We needed that tonight, and I thought he was really good and set the tone, and then everybody else kind of joined him.”
With 17 double-doubles, Portis is tied for fourth in the NBA in that department.
“Obviously to lose in that fashion – a 30- or 40-point (loss) on the road – it’s difficult to take in that night,” Portis said about the team’s 142-101 loss to Memphis. “But we play 82 games and we can’t dwell on it that much. Next game mentality. It was cool to get one of these type of wins before we had back on the road.”
A totally different look from the last game
After that worst loss of the year, the Jazz game represented a breath of fresh air.
“We definitely wanted to be better tonight,” said Brook Lopez, who had 18 points and eight rebounds. “We were all disappointed in our effort, virtually everything, the other night. I think we felt and knew we were going to come in tonight and give a much better effort and show up.”
Budenholzer joked before the game he wouldn’t even confess if he watched the game tape from the Memphis game, but the next opportunity arrived quickly.
“The guys relished that opportunity, going on the road for a pretty good trip here,” Budenholzer said. “No matter what happens, we have a great team. There’s nights where you feel like you need your group to deliver, and they did tonight.”