Sunday night in Denver, the Milwaukee Bucks came back from a 14-point hole in the fourth quarter to make it a one-possession game with a 1:22 to go. In the final minute, they missed four straight shots with a chance to cut the lead to one or tie. Still in a 105-102 deadlock with the shot clock turned off, the Bucks failed to capitalize on multiple offensive rebounds as both AJ Green and then Ryan Rollins came up short on three-point attempts. They were that close to snatching victory.
Instead, the Nuggets secured yet another win despite a severely undermanned unit, down four starters including Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray.
Knowing that one play could have swung the outcome made the loss all the more bitter. For head coach Doc Rivers, it was the Bucks’ erratic passing, a theme all night long, that cost them in the end.
Dismal passing dooms Bucks’ chances in winnable game
“I thought our passing was horrific tonight,” Rivers said. “We had guys wide open and the balls are down by our ankles. I mean the off-target passing really did us in tonight.”
The box score paints an innocent picture. The Bucks tallied 29 assists on the night, accounting for 76% of their made baskets. They committed only 11 turnovers. They shot 41% from three. They were basically even on the glass and won in paint points and fastbreak points.
How did they lose?
A 10-point free-throw advantage for Denver made the difference: the Nuggets went 24-31 at the line to the Bucks’ 14-20. Rivers wasn’t so sure his team got a fair whistle. But the free-throw margin need not have been an issue if Milwaukee executed basic passing fundamentals.
“I thought we would have generated a ton of threes but for our passing,” Rivers lamented, identifying a key issue holding down the Bucks’ attempts beyond the arc. “We just got to really hone in on putting the ball in people’s hands.”
Converting shots is one thing, but 34 attempts is well below Rivers’ target number. Only half-joking, he said previously that he wants them taking 50 per game. In what should have been an edge, they allowed the Nuggets to keep perfect pace (14-35 from distance to the Bucks’ 14-34).
Rivers noted that sometimes his younger players will “force” poor looks from distance. Regarding the sequence in the final 20 seconds, however, when Green and Rollins had a chance to tie, that wasn’t so much the case.
“I will say this. If you go back and watch, one of those threes should have been wide open, maybe both, but the passes were bad. And because of that [the Nuggets] were able to recover.”
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