Cavaliers edge Bucks 114-113 in final seconds, sending them to fifth straight loss
Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard did their best to carry the Milwaukee Bucks to a victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers on Saturday night at Fiserv Forum, but despite them both playing nearly 40 minutes and combining for 75 points, the Bucks lost their fifth straight game, 114-113, to fall to 1-5 on the year.
The Cavaliers, playing on the second night of a back-to-back, won their seventh straight to open the year thanks to a Donovan Mitchell bucket with three-tenths of a second left.
Despite the loss, Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo had a largely positive outlook postgame. He cited areas in which the team could have been better to secure a win but has found a way to be encouraged despite the fact the team is in a losing streak.
“Yeah, I don’t focus on the results," he began. "That’s not my job. My job is to focus on things that I can do better. I’m a basketball player. The things I can control. I can’t control the outcome of the game. I can control things that happen within the game and you hope that the outcome is what you like. And things that happened within the game, they were good.
"(Mitchell) could miss the shot and we’d have a different story. I couldn’t control that shot. I can’t control the play that he’s gonna make, and he’s gonna make a beautiful shot at the end. I can’t control that. It took me awhile to think that way. But now, as a leader of this team, I think we are headed towards the right direction. Now, that doesn’t mean we’re going to go to a five-game winning streak or 10-game winning streak, but I know that we are playing better and we trust another. the ball is moving. There’s a lot of good things that we can do. That’s all we can control. We can’t control the outcome of the game.”
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Donovan Mitchell hits first NBA game-winner, stopping 'Dame Time'
Leading 111-109 in the final minutes, Cleveland outhustled Milwaukee on two consecutive offensive rebounds that led to a Jarrett Allen free throw that put the Cavaliers up 112-109 with 80 seconds left.
An Antetokounmpo hook shot brought the Bucks within one with 1:08 to go and then Brook Lopez rejected an Allen dunk attempt with 40.6 seconds left and Antetokounmpo forced Donovan Mitchell into a tough miss from 15 feet with 24.8 seconds to slingshot the Bucks the other way.
Allen stopped an Antetokounmpo drive attempt, and the Bucks called timeout with 14.9 left to set up Lillard in the half-court – and he dropped a 15-foot step-back over Isaac Okoro with 9.8 remaining to give the Bucks a 114-113 lead.
“The way it was designed, I was zippering up, getting the catch and we had been talking our spacing and Doc drew it up to where the spacing on the floor, I had a lot of room to just take my man," Lillard said. "So I once I got the catch, I just kind of turned over and I took a peek to see where guys were and where I’d be able to attack and once I saw that I pretty much had a whole third of the floor, got downhill like I’d be doing the whole game, he got into my body and was trying to ride me to the rim but I knew I was going to be able to get spacing and get to my step-back. But it was a simple play.”
It proved to be 9.5 seconds too many, as Donovan Mitchell saved two near-turnovers (one off the inbound following a Cleveland timeout) and a lost dribble against some good defense from Gary Trent Jr., to knock down a 19-footer to give Cleveland a 114-113 lead with 0.3 remaining.
Cavaliers head coach Kenny Atkinson said after the game it was Mitchell's first career game-winner.
“I thought it was defended pretty well," Bucks head coach Doc Rivers said. "First he almost denied him into the back court. We almost got a break there. Then he knocks it loose. In some ways that kind of hurt him because I think Giannis and him went for the ball. That allowed Donovan to get back to the middle, and he still made a tough shot. You live with those.”
Added Bucks forward Taurean Prince: “It played out perfectly. We wouldn’t have wanted to have it any different, honestly. He fumbled the ball, he had to run go get it, still dribbled and got a good shot up. So props to him. Good player made a good play. But I think he took the tough shot we wanted him to take instead of a layup or a wide open shot, so I mean, you gotta kind of tip your hat off and give it to him.”
Lillard got off a 31-footer, but it was just off.
Lillard scored 41 points on 13 of 24 shooting, including a 10-for-15 mark from behind the three-point line. He also handed out nine assists. Antetokounmpo scored 34 points on 15 of 27 shooting and pulled down 16 rebounds and handed out nine assists.
Mitchell led the Cavaliers with 30 points on 11 of 25 shooting.
Sam Merrill sparks Cavaliers
Sam Merrill's Milwaukee tenure was brief, but historic. He hit the NBA-record 28th three-pointer for the Bucks in a Dec. 29, 2020 game against Miami in which the Bucks made 29 on the night -- a record matched earlier this season by Boston. Then, of course, he was part of the team that won the 2021 NBA title.
Now in his third season with Cleveland, Merrill is a valuable contributor to an early Eastern Conference contender and he showed why against the Bucks in making 5 three-pointers and scoring 17 points off the bench.
But it was the timing of those threes, as he hit three in less than a minute late in the first quarter to a 16-point Bucks lead down to 10.
"I thought Sam Merrill, in a lot of ways, won the game for ‘em," Doc Rivers said. "That was a guy we targeted before the game. We talked, when he comes in he’s coming in for one reason and if he’s in the corner that means he’s not going to be in the corner much longer, they’re gonna set picks for him. And we gave him those nine points, I think it was the end of the first, middle of the second, I thought that changed the game because I thought they were in a box. That got them back in the game and I thought that changed the game.”
After the game, Taurean Prince said it was on him for allowing that stretch to take place.
“All three of his threes where when I was guarding him, so that’s something I gotta take responsibility for," Prince said. "And you never know – that definitely got them going and got them kind of in that emotional belief that they could close that lead. I can admit – I kind of slept on him a little bit. But definitely won’t happen again.”
By the end of the first quarter, the Bucks were up just eight. By halftime, it was down to a one-point lead after the Cavaliers had full erased the 16-point deficit.
“We took that barrage in the first quarter,” Atkinson said. “In the NBA that game could go, you could get blown out by 30 easy. Thirty, 40 on the road, it happens. Games like that happens. You say back-to-back, we could’ve just kind of wilted. Instead, we were resilient, we stuck with it, we had little run, we got back in, we sniffed we could get back in the game. Once we got back in the game it was a battle. But you gotta really give them a lot of credit, 18-for-38 from three, Dame was unbelievable, Giannis was great. Great NBA basketball game.”
Bucks shooters start hot, cool off
A game after going 9-for-42 from behind the three-point line in a blowout loss in Memphis, Milwaukee started its game against Cleveland scoring 7-for-11 from distance.
Five of those three-pointers were from Damian Lillard, and it helped the Bucks race out to a 9-0 lead to start the game and a 33-17 advantage following a Brook Lopez triple with 4 minutes, 43 seconds to go in the first quarter.
Though 63.6% from distance was going to be unsustainable, they went unreasonably cold from then on.
Lillard, Lopez and Trent did hit a trio of clutch threes in the fourth quarter to help even the game at 109 in the final minutes.
Milwaukee finished the game 18-for-39 for the game from deep – a very good 46.2% – but the 39% after the first quarter was effectively matched by Cleveland’s 39.5% mark (15-for-38) for the game.
Bucks still waiting on Khris Middleton
Despite getting in a good workout on an Oct. 30 practice in Boston and going through shootaround on Oct. 31 in Memphis, Bucks head coach Doc Rivers said before the game on Saturday that they’re still waiting for Khris Middleton to be cleared to practice five-on-five.
The Bucks are off Sunday before heading to Cleveland to play the Cavaliers on Monday. Tuesday and Wednesday are off days, and then the team plays a home-road back-to-back against Utah and New York on Nov. 7-8.
MarJon Beauchamp speaks on Bucks declining his option
The Bucks declined the fourth-year rookie option of MarJon Beauchamp on Oct. 31, meaning the No. 24 pick in the 2022 draft can become an unrestricted free agent after this season.
“I needed that to kind of put a fire under me,” he told the Journal Sentinel on Saturday. “So, I know who I am though and I know what (kind of) basketball player I am so I’m not really phased on that. I know that my work will always show and as long as I believe in myself, I’m not really worried about that. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise, you know? I’m still worried about right now and controlling what I can control.”
Beauchamp has yet to find a consistent footing with the Bucks under three different head coaches, with the majority of playing time coming when veterans in front of him on the roster had been hurt. This season the 24-year-old has appeared in every game, but it has come after outcomes had been decided.
“My back is against the wall,” he said. “I’ve been dealing with that my whole life, so I like being in this position. I feel like it makes me hungry. Whenever I get my opportunity, you’re gonna see.
“I feel like I go all out in those little two, three minutes I’m out there. I just control what I can control for those two or three minutes. I’m just waiting on an opportunity. I know I can be out there to help the team. So, just waiting on that.”
5 numbers
3: Missed free throws by Damian Lillard in the first quarter, his most in a game since missing three against Houston on Jan. 6. His career high in a game is four, which he had done eight times in Portland. The last time he missed that many in a game was Jan. 24, 2023.Lillard: “I missed three free throws today. We lost by one. So you could easily say if I just made two, or miss two or miss one instead of missing three it could be a different outcome. It’s really not just about what (Antetokounmpo and I) can do for other guys to maybe make a few more shots or whatever. I think it’s just those little moments throughout the game that we just; we slip up.”
25%: Shooting from behind the three-point line on the season for Bucks guard Gary Trent Jr. after a 1-for-7 performance from deep against the Cavaliers. He is now 9 of 36 from behind the three-point line in six games this season. A free agent signing from Toronto, Trent came into the year as a 38.6% career shooter from deep and made 39.3% of his triples last year for the Raptors.
48: Damian Lillard’s place on the all-time assists list, as he passed Larry Bird with his sixth assist on the night vs. the Cavaliers – a dish to Giannis Antetokounmpo near the end of the first half.
2015: Last time the Bucks lost six straight games, from March 12-22 in the 2014-15 season. Milwaukee takes its five-game losing streak to Cleveland on Monday.
11/28/2018: Date Damian Lillard last hit 10 three-pointers in a game, when he scored 41 points for Portland against Orlando.
What channel is the Bucks game on?
The game will tip-off at 7 p.m. on FanDuel Sports Network with Lisa Byington, Marques Johnson, and Melanie Ricks on the call.
Is Giannis playing?
Yes. He’s been dealing with tendinitis in his right patella since the preseason but has not looked hampered at all to date.
Bucks injury report
Giannis Antetokounmpo, probable (right patella tendinitis)
More: Analysis: Should the Milwaukee Bucks actually have championship expectations?
Cavaliers injury report
Caris LeVert, out (right knee soreness)
Max Strus, out (right ankle sprain)
Jaylon Tyson, out (left hip sprain)
Craig Porter Jr., probable (right thumb sprain)
Bucks starters
Guards: Damian Lillard, Gary Trent Jr.
Forwards: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Taurean Prince
Center: Brook Lopez
More: The Bucks are in win-now mode, but financial flexibility around Giannis and Lillard is coming
Bucks vs. Cavaliers odds, over/under
Milwaukee is a slight 1.5-point favorite over Cleveland and the over/under is 231.5 points, per BetMGM.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Cavaliers edge Bucks 114-113, sending them to fifth straight loss
