Though it was Leap Day, the Charlotte Hornets still weren’t leaping into the win column against the Milwaukee Bucks, who handed their purple-and-teal hosts a 111-99 home loss on Thursday night.
Adding some context to how one-sided the season series has been, this was Milwaukee’s smallest margin of victory over Charlotte in the four head-to-head battles. Brandon Miller scored a team-high 21 points and Miles Bridges had a 15-point, 10-rebound double-double for the Hornets, who failed to crack 100 points in all four meetings with the Bucks this year.
Milwaukee opened the contest with a quick 8-0 spurt, while the Hornets missed their first seven shots. Later, after finally collecting itself, Charlotte was hovering five back midway through the second quarter before the Bucks uncorked a 24-10 stretch to enter halftime holding a 70-51 lead. The Hornets chipped the deficit down a little bit here and there in the second half but couldn’t generate any sort of game-shifting momentum at any point.
Grant Williams (17) and Seth Curry (13) combined for 30 points off Charlotte’s bench. While the Hornets converted an efficient 15-of-19 attempts at the rim (78.9%), the overall paint scoring continued to be fruitless (38 points on 19-of-31 shooting). This is now the first time the team has scored under 100 points in four consecutive outings since an eight-game stretch from April 8 – Nov. 1, 2015, according to Basketball Reference.
“I know it sounds redundant – the ball’s got to hit the paint,” said Hornets Head Coach Steve Clifford following the loss. “We’re not executing well enough and not playing with enough force or purpose. We don’t take bad shots, but we take okay shots. We’ve got to get really good shots. When we did, we were efficient. That’s something, whether it’s newness of the group or whatever. We were better defensively in the second half. They had us all spread out in the first half there tonight and we missed a lot of helps and stuff, which we’ve been good at.”
“That’s a great team playing at a high clip,” added Miller, whose 18th 20-point game is now fourth most by a rookie in franchise history. “I think we just have to have a better start. I think that’s one of our main things is coming out with the most energy that we can.”
Giannis Antetokounmpo totaled 24 points on 10-of-15 shooting, two 3-pointers, 10 rebounds, and five assists in Milwaukee’s fourth straight win. Malik Beasley finished with 19 points and canned 5-of-7 shots from 3-point range, while reserve Bobby Portis tallied 14 points and 10 rebounds for his ninth double-double of the campaign. With the victory, the Bucks sealed their first four-game season-series sweep of Charlotte since 2004-05.
The Hornets will close out their back-to-back and start a short two-game road trip against the Philadelphia 76ers on Friday, March 1 beginning at 7 PM ET. Follow all the action on Bally Sports Southeast and WFNZ 92.7 FM.
Hornets vs Bucks Gallery ‑ 02/29/24
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