MEMPHIS – Damian Lillard took a deep breath of resignation after yet another layup could not find the bottom of the net with just over seven minutes left.

Brook Lopez pursed his lips together when his layup rattled around and out about a minute later.

Lillard then tossed his hands up after his lob attempt to Giannis Antetokounmpo with 2:52 left wasn’t high enough and was picked off, leading to a go-ahead three-pointer the other way.

It was that kind of night for the Milwaukee Bucks, who lost 113-110 to the Memphis Grizzlies on Thursday night at FedExForum.

The Bucks had layups and three-pointers not go down while the short-handed Grizzlies had shots beat the shot-clock buzzer and got career nights from GG Jackson II (27 points) and Ziaire Williams (27 points) as they hustled and scrapped their way to an upset victory over the Eastern Conference contenders on national TV.

"I think when you do all of the little things and you do the right things you get rewarded for it," Lillard said. "A lot of coaches that I've played for say when you're the more aggressive team, referees reward that and the game rewards playing hard and 50-50 balls and getting those extra bounces. I thought tonight we did it in stretches but they're a young team, they don't have nothing to lose, a lot of guys playing for their careers on the line with this opportunity and we gave 'em life and they scratched and clawed and got those bounces over us."

BOX SCORE: Grizzlies 113, Bucks 110

Seemingly on the verge of putting together a win streak earlier in the week, the Bucks backed into the break with consecutive losses to Miami and Memphis teams bereft of star power but overflowing with want-to.

"They competed harder than us today, they competed harder than us two days ago," Antetokounmpo said. "We are not on track of what we are trying to do. I feel like the team feels it. The team feels it. I feel it. And I have now seven days that I have to try to take care of my body, try to rest from this mentally draining season from all the changes and all the things that are going on. Just try to relax a little bit as much as I can, try to take care of my body, try to come back and try to go."

They are now 35-21 and 3-7 under new head coach Doc Rivers. Memphis improved to 20-36.

“I thought we were bad until we needed to be (good), you know what I mean?” Rivers said of the loss. “We started off the game; I think we gifted like 5 threes in a row where were standing there, we just – dare shots. Everybody in this league can play. You gotta respect everybody. One kid made three in a row and we didn’t even adjust.

"These losses obviously you don’t want to lose games like this ever, does that change the way I think about the team and where I think we can go? It doesn’t at all. I got a lot of confidence in this group. But we’re going to have to have make changes as far as how we want to play every night. And, we ease into the game. And that’s everybody. We need the guys that can play defense to be better defensively and we need the guys who are learning to play defense to be solid in rotations and things like that. At the end of the game we start playing hard and we got right back in the game. It just tells you where we were at all game.”

Milwaukee next plays on Feb. 23 in Minneapolis.

Bucks can’t hold off Grizzlies in fourth quarter

The Bucks came back from a 10-point third quarter deficit on the strength of five early fourth quarter points by Lillard and a pair of Antetokounmpo baskets and an assist to Jae Crowder to go up 102-101 with 3:30 to go in the game, but the Bucks scored just two more points – and didn’t make a field goal – when the game was still in reach as the Grizzlies pushed their advantage to 113-104 with under a minute to go.

Malik Beasley sandwiched two missed Lamar Stevens free throws with three-pointers on consecutive possessions with 45 and 29 seconds left to pull the Bucks to within 113-110. Jae Crowder then drew a charge on Vince Williams Jr. with 11.2 seconds left to set up a potential game-tying possession. But as Lillard brought the ball up and Lopez prepared to screen, the two collided, the Grizzlies pounced and the ball shook loose. Lillard recovered it, kicked it to Lopez who shot it right back to the guard, but Lillard had to heave a 35-footer that missed the mark.

“I was looking to see if they were signaling as if they was going to go for the foul up three, but they weren’t," Lillard said. "And, I was just going to come off a drag at half court and try to get a clean look but it was just a miscommunication between me and Brook. I was trying to come off, but it’s tricky at that half court line and he was trying to get a good angle on a screen and I was setting my move up and we did opposite things. Then I had kind of go over the screen at a weird angle and they just made a play on it. It was loose and we didn’t end up getting a clean look.”

Lillard scored 24 points on 7 of 21 shooting, including 3-for-13 from behind the three-point line. Beasley was 3-for-10 from behind the three-point line for nine points while Lopez had 14 points and 11 rebounds. Bobby Portis added 15 points off the bench for the Bucks.

“The frustrating part about end of the game, and I’ve bene in that situation a lot of times, sometimes weird (expletive) happen and the game end and it’s hard to let go of it because it’s just like, you want to have another chance at it because it doesn’t happen like that often," Lillard said. "But tonight was one of those times. We set ourselves up to be in that type of game and we hen you do that, that type of stuff can happen and it did.”

Giannis Antetokounmpo continues to play through knee tendinitis

Antetokounmpo played in his 15^th straight game on Thursday after he was initially downgraded from probable to questionable after the team’s morning shootaround in Memphis with right patellar tendinitis.

The 7-footer looked no worse for wear as he consistently pounded the interior of the smaller Memphis defense for 35 points. His only two missed shots came on midrange jumpers as Antetokounmpo was a perfect 15 of 15 in the restricted area. And when the Grizzlies tried to surround him, Antetokounmpo dished it off for 12 assists.

He first reported the issue on Feb. 4 in Utah, which followed a 48-point, 40-minute night against Dallas on Feb. 3.

Though he had not missed a game since the tendinitis flared up prior to playing the Jazz, Antetokounmpo’s minutes have fallen to 32.2 over his last six games (though a couple of blowouts have helped that cause) and he averaged 26.3 points and 10.5 rebounds per game – both below his season averages of 30.7 and 11.4.

His assist total has climbed to 7.0 per game, however, in that span.

Antetokounmpo is expected to play in the NBA all-star game on Sunday.

He was the league’s leading vote-getter and captain of the Eastern Conference team, which also includes teammate Lillard and will be coached by Rivers.

After offseason surgery on his left knee, Antetokounmpo has been in the lineup on a regular basis for the first time in years for the Bucks. He’s only missed two games (Nov. 15 and Jan. 17) – the team is 1-1 without him – and he’s on track to play his most games since he appeared in 72 in his first MVP season in 2018-19.

Did you notice?

On Memphis’ final possession of the first quarter they let the clock run down to the final seconds, and new Bucks point guard Patrick Beverley held his hands over his head and began making the “talk” motion with his fingers to get his teammates behind him speaking more. One of the first things Doc Rivers said about the Bucks defense was that they weren’t talking at a high enough level and Beverley would help bring that element to that unit.

Andre Jackson Jr. gets call to spark Bucks

In the third quarter the Bucks struggled mightily to get stops on the defensive end, and the youthful, hungry Grizzlies with 2 two-way players and a player on a 10-day contract were pushing pace to make a name for themselves in a nationally televised game against one of the league’s better teams. So, with 2 minutes, 59 seconds left in the frame and the Bucks down 82-77 Doc Rivers turned to Andre Jackson Jr. for a lift.

It was the rookie’s first real rotation minutes since Rivers took over as coach, but unfortunately for Jackson Jr. and the Bucks he was called for three fouls and missed a seven-foot floater as the Grizzlies expanded their lead to as many as 10.

"We needed a guy to stay in front of the ball, I mean anyone 'cause no one was," Rivers said. "I actually thought he did his job overall. They found him on the other end, which happens. Loved him to make that layup. That would have been great for his confidence. The kid takes everything so hard, you know. You can see it on his face when he misses the layup, we're clapping trying to; but he's young, plays hard, plays with the right spirit, really like him."

Five numbers

4:05 Time left when the game ball was swapped out for a backup, as the one used all game fell into a spectator's drink.

4-5 First half fouls called on Memphis, and then third quarter fouls called on the Grizzlies as Antetokounmpo and Lillard tried to get to the rim more aggressively. The latter got the Bucks into the bonus for the final two minutes of the frame.

9 Available players for the Grizzlies, one above the league-minimum to begin a game.

12-14 Bucks record on the road. They lost 15 games on the road all last season.

47 Seconds into the second half when Rivers called timeout. The Grizzlies’ Williams hit an open corner three near the end of the shot clock to start the quarter for a 60-57 lead, but then after Beasley missed a three-pointer no one got back in transition defense and Williams got an easy layup to make it 62-57. The Grizzlies would go on to score 37 points in the quarter and led by as many as 10 before taking a 94-85 lead into the fourth.

Rivers: It just told us where we were at. First play we gamble for the 50^th time in the corner. Guy drives, we have to help, leads to a three. We come back on our set and two guys forget what we’re running. Then we miss the shot and nobody gets back. That’s how we start out the third quarter. That tells you all you need to know about where our heads were. We had some guys here, and we had some guys in Cabo.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Giannis scores 35 but Bucks can't hold off Grizzlies, lose 113-110