SAN FRANCISCO — With just 31.7 seconds left in Saturday’s game, Golden State Warriors guard Donte DiVincenzo sparked the inbounds game against his former team, with the Warriors trailing by three.
Milwaukee Bucks center Brook Lopez, who covered Draymond Green in the left corner of the floor, looked around the floor and prepared to help his teammates. As DiVincenzo passed the ball, Warriors guard Stephen Curry whipped around a screen of Green and sprinted right into that corner. Lopez ignored Green and approached Curry, who was walking loose when Jevon Carter was caught on Green’s screen.
As Lopez held on to Curry to give Carter time to return to one of the greatest shooters in NBA history, Green flashed wide near the free-throw line. DiVincenzo delivered the ball to him and Green immediately turned to action on the weak side of the floor. Pat Connaughton, marking for Jordan Poole, followed Poole to ensure the Bucks didn’t allow Klay Thompson to bust off a dribble handoff with Green for a 3-pointer.
With Connaughton focused on Thompson, Poole slid to the basket with no one near the edge. Green delivered a bounce pass on time and on target, and somehow Lopez swooped in out of nowhere for a game-saving block.
After Lopez secured the block he made from the backboard, there was only 27 seconds left. To extend the game, the Warriors would have to foul, so Lopez passed the ball to Holiday, who had just hit a stepback 3 to give the Bucks a 3-point lead. With the ball and possibly the game in hand, Holiday raced up the left touchline and dribbled the ball wide with no real pressure.
“Basically we had the game, but I was stupid,” Holiday said. “Honestly, I was just dribbling and the ball wasn’t coming up, but that’s stupid. I just wanted to come over. I knew they had to foul. But I didn’t want to play with it in the backcourt, just bring it over and then stand there. stupid game Stupid game of mine.”
The Warriors didn’t let their second chance for a draw go to waste. Opting to play without a time-out, the Warriors got the ball to Curry, who dribbled to the floor, creating space against Carter and burying a stepback 3 to level the game with 18 seconds left.
In less than 14 seconds of play, the Bucks had sealed their win with an amazing defensive play, given it away with a stupid turnover and watched as Curry tied the game to send it into overtime where the Warriors (35-33) eventually won. 125-116. It was the second Saturday in a row that the Bucks (48-19) suffered a primetime loss on national television.
While Holiday’s careless dribbling out of bounds might have been the biggest mistake, it wasn’t nearly the only mistake the Bucks made in trying to finish the game.
At 2:05 in the fourth quarter, the Bucks took an eight-point lead at 108-100 when Holiday (18 points, nine rebounds and eight assists) found Joe Ingles for his fifth 3-pointer of the game. From there, the Bucks passed a 3 to Curry, Lopez missed a hookshot in the pick-and-roll with Ingles, and then Curry buried another 3 to reduce the Bucks’ lead to two.
In an attempt to seal the game, the Bucks turned to Middleton (19 points, three rebounds, five assists) to end the game in a two-man game with Bobby Portis (15 points, 13 rebounds). However, as Middleton tried to isolate against Thompson, he fell over and lost the ball, which Thompson collected and Curry threw forward to tie the game at 108.
“I just twisted my ankle,” Middleton told The Athletic. “I twisted my ankle at the wrong time. It happens. It’s unfortunate. I just have to take it, but yeah, I just rolled my ankle, fell and coughed the ball up for the potential layup.
With Giannis Antetokounmpo out for the third straight year due to right hand pain, the Bucks needed Holiday and Middleton to win the game but they just couldn’t make it. Aside from Holiday’s 3-pointer to give the Bucks the three-point lead ahead of his late turnover, they couldn’t get the job done.
After Curry hit the 3-pointer to level the game at 108, the Bucks still had a chance to win the game in rule and turned to Holiday for what could have been the last game of the game. Rather than complicate things, Budenholzer called for a simple action on the touchline while out of time-out to give Holiday the ball and let him isolate against DiVincenzo.
Before Holiday even put the ball on the ground, DiVincenzo pressed tightly against the Bucks’ point guard, which allowed Holiday to get an angle on DiVincenzo and get past him on his way to the rim. With a good margin in the game and four shooters on the ground, Curry was the only player who could attempt to protect the rim, and the future Hall of Famer point guard actually blocked Holiday’s shot.
“I thought I had a lead,” Holiday said. “Again, I should know that if I go in there, I won’t get a bad call. They will swallow the whistle at the end of the game.”
The Bucks escaped into overtime when Draymond Green missed a 3-pointer on the buzzer, but ultimately fell apart in the final period. Their struggles in overtime began with Middleton not having the floor. After playing 32 minutes in the first four quarters, Middleton started extra time on the bench while the Bucks continue to put him on his normal minute load.
“We’re trying to be very careful about how we bring Khris back and keep him healthy,” Budenholzer said. “He couldn’t play, he didn’t want to play every five minutes of extra time so to have him closer and he played – you know, those tough decisions, they don’t always work, but I think overall his body is in a good place . We try to go the long way with him. They are hard, difficult decisions in the middle of the game.”
Middleton eventually checked into the game with 2:03 minutes remaining, but the Bucks were already down 120-113 from lack of offensive play as the Warriors scored on three of their first four offensive possessions in overtime.
On his first offensive possession, Middleton hit a 3 to reduce the Bucks’ deficit to a four, but the Warriors shut out the Bucks by hitting them on offensive glass.
After Middleton hit the 3, it looked like a trap from Middleton and Portis would force a turnover on the next defensive possession, but Holiday couldn’t secure a steal on a faulty pass from Curry. When Green Holiday slapped the ball and passed it to Looney, the Bucks gave up an offensive rebound to Looney when Thompson missed a midrange jumper.
Looney made his first free throw but missed his second, which Green tipped over for another possession for the Warriors. The Bucks defended ensuing possession well, forcing Curry to hoist a contested 30-footer, but again failed to secure the rebound to end possession.
“We had to get better,” Budenholzer said of the Bucks’ defensive rebound struggles. “I thought there were times when we just stood there expecting someone else to get it. We didn’t go with the power and attitude we needed to get every rebound. I thought the attacking boards, especially early in the first quarter and first half and then again a bit late, that’s an area where I think we could be a lot better than tonight.”
For the Bucks, losing to the defending champions away from home without their two-time MVP isn’t the end of the world. In a tight game in a tricky environment, Milwaukee managed to build an eight-point lead behind some strong playmaking and shotmaking from Ingles and Holiday in the fourth quarter, but ultimately squandered the lead through a series of crunchtime errors by some of the same Players that extended the lead. Those are valuable repeats, even if Saturday’s result didn’t go to Bucks.
(Photo: Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)