Bucks have a late tip: 9pm CST
The 36-17 Milwaukee Bucks take on the 26-27 Portland Trail Blazers to start a West Coast road trip. The Trail Blazers have played well lately, winning three of their last four. Portland is also decent at home at 14-11. Last season they were dominant at home. Of course, Milwaukee has been red hot, winning their last seven games. Now that Khris Middleton is back the Bucks are playing with great continuity.
This is the second, and last, time these two teams will play this season unless they both make the NBA finals.
Vegas has the Blazers as underdogs at home by 4 points. This game will really depend upon who all plays.
Related: Giannis records triple-double in win over Heat
Keys for the Bucks
Make their free throws
Milwaukee was 17-28 from the line against the Heat. It made the game feel closer than it needed to be. That’s 11 points most any team could use.
Against the LA Clippers, the Bucks were slightly better at 19-27. And that game was close! Making a few more from the charity stripe would have really helped in a one point win.
Milwaukee’s team free throw shooting percentage on the season is 73%. Milwaukee needs to start shooting over that number. Making 3 of 4 shots seems like something that should be easy. With so many guys attacking the basket, those are bankable points.
Keep shooting the three
The Bucks average 39 three point attempts a game. (Portland only averages 34 per game, sixth lowest in the NBA) The Bucks and their offense is built around Giannis driving the ball and kicking it out to a shooter. This game should have that feel of a normal, NBA regular season game. We can expect very little defense until the fourth quarter.
So who needs to make some threes? How about “Planet Pat” or the “Great Grayson” or “Splash Mountain”? These veterans, along with some “Kash” Money Middleton work, need some solid productivity from behind the arc.
The Opponent: The Portland Trail Blazers
Damian Lillard is a really good player. He is averaging 30.3 points per game. He also leads the team in assists (7.3). He should play against the Bucks.
Injuries have really hurt the Blazers this year. Because of all the guys who have been out, the team has not really played with a center of late. Jusuf Nurkic is an interesting big man. However he is out through the all-star break with a left calf strain. That should really help Brook Lopez.
Anferene Simmons is scoring with 22 points a game. Josh Hart has been a good addition for Portland. He came over in the CJ McCullom trade and has been a strong scorer who hustles. He averaged, in his career, over 17 points against the Bucks.
This is ruthless. Blazers run High Horns 6x in a row (watch Dame with 🤘). Bulls could not stop it until they got away with fouling Dame on the sixth try. pic.twitter.com/s4ZSFX8TYy
— Steph Noh (@StephNoh) February 5, 2023
Things to tell your buddies as you are watching the game
- The Blazers have only won one NBA Championship (1977).
- The team’s name is an allusion to the Lewis and Clark Expedition, which ended not far from present-day Portland.
- The longest winning streak in Milwaukee Bucks history is 20 games, set during the 1970-71 season. The winning streak started on Feb 6, 1971 with a 111-85 win over the San Francisco Warriors and ended on Mar 9 with a 103-110 loss to the Chicago Bulls. Guess what today is?
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