With their postseason aspirations hanging in the balance, the Milwaukee Bucks look to get back on track when they host the Utah Jazz on Saturday night.
The Bucks lost their fourth straight game by at least 18 points on Wednesday night as they fell 131-113 to the Hawks, allowing Atlanta to gain a five-game lead over them for the final East play-in spot.
In Giannis Antetokounmpo’s second game back from injury, he led the team with 24 points in an outing limited to 26 minutes. Kyle Kuzma added 16 points off the bench.
Antetokounmpo showed frustration with 4:20 left in the game when he threw the ball off the stanchion of the hoop, earning a technical.
“I’d rather have the emotions than none, I’m not going to overdo that as the boiling point of the game,” Bucks coach Doc Rivers said. “He was frustrated, everyone was frustrated. We scored 18 points in the third quarter. We got stagnant.”
“I was frustrated. That’s it,” Antetokounmpo said. “When you’re down 11 or 12, you got to play smarter, try to get the best spot possible. At the end of the day, we need to be on the same page. We weren’t doing that.”
Utah, which has faced financial penalties from the league and general criticism for tanking, comes into this one off its first win since Feb. 11. The Jazz took down Washington 122-112 on Thursday night to end a seven-game skid.
Ace Bailey led Utah with a career-high 32 points on 7-of-11 shooting from deep. Isaiah Collier added a career-high 27 points with 11 assists, while Kyle Filipowski scored 20 with 14 rebounds.
“Obviously this is Ace’s best game as a pro, made a lot of good reads especially coming off hand-offs, I was happy for him,” Jazz coach Will Hardy said. “It’s a good win for our group.”
Part of the noise around the Jazz is their lengthy injury report. The list of players out for the season includes Walker Kessler, Jusuf Nurkic, Vince Williams Jr. and, most notably, recently acquired Jaren Jackson Jr.
Lauri Markkanen (hip) is out and will be re-evaluated late next week, while Keyonte George, who had two straight games scoring at least 30 points, missed Thursday’s game due to “right ankle injury management.”
Without Markkanen, George and Jackson, they are missing 73 points per game (based on Jackson’s three games played with Utah).
On the other side, Milwaukee got more bad injury news right after Antetokounmpo returned, as Kevin Porter Jr. went back on the shelf with right knee swelling. He is officially listed as day-to-day.
“We’re hoping not. I’ll just leave it there,” Rivers said when asked if it is serious and cause for concern. “But it’s a lot of swelling and has been bothering him the last couple of weeks, so there’s some concern there.”
This is the first of two matchups between these teams this season. Milwaukee comes in on a two-game win streak over Utah after sweeping last year’s pair. The teams have taken turns sweeping the two-game set the last three seasons.
