The 108-95 victory on Saturday over Golden State, which snapped the Warriors’ record 24-game winning streak to start a season, could be the spark they need to climb in the Eastern Conference standings. To compound matters further, Golden State had just squeaked out a grueling double-overtime win over the Boston Celtics the night before at TD Garden.
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“We looked like we ran out of gas a little bit”, Warriors interim coach Luke Walton said. Even when Wilt was averaging 50 points a game in 1961-62, his team didn’t win ALL its games. Golden State bumped off Phoenix earlier this season 135-116 behind Curry’s 41 points and nine assists and a 22-for-38 night from three-point range on November 27.
In a unusual twist of flashback fate, the Bucks were also the team that ended the Lakers’ streak with a 120-104 victory on Jan 9, 1972.
Stephen Curry had 28 points on 10-of-21 shooting from the field. Bayless has missed five straight games and six of Milwaukee’s last seven games with a left ankle sprain.
“They know how to win”, Walton said.
While NFL football rules the day in the U.S., European fans are tuning in to the National Basketball Association in big numbers for a rare chance to catch live action and still get a good night of sleep.
Warriors: C Andrew Bogut, who was drafted first overall by the Bucks in 2005, finished with two points. Winning 24 games to start the season isn’t an easy task.
The road-wiery Warriors were playing the 7th road game on their 7-game road trip.
Greg Monroe led the Bucks with 28 points.
Monroe, the free-agent center from Detroit who chose Milwaukee over NY and Los Angeles, scored 11 points in the fourth quarter, thriving against the champs’ bigs and, more impressively, their smalls. “Being young, we have to understand defense has to come first”. With a huge win in front of a packed house, this could be positive momentum that pushes the Bucks in the right direction and turns their season around. “It was a great opportunity for us”.
After the Lakers game, the Bucks will stay in Los Angeles to face the Clippers on Wednesday. “When it was a tough game against Boston, I was home watching the game and I was like, “Man, y’all got to pull this out”.
Forward Draymond Green said he feels like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders now that the streak is over.
“With Giannis (Antetokounmpo), Jabari, me and Michael (Carter-Williams), Khris (Middleton), we’re all interchangeable in a lot of positions on the floor”. – Walton, when asked if there a sense of relief that the winning streak had ended. Their intentions are clear and all the best to them for going for it. They’ll have no one to blame but themselves, though, if they cost themselves a championship because they took the regular season too seriously.
“You’ve got to go to work the next day, so people are always like, ‘I’ve got to sleep”. “We can refocus on not just on winning games but how we’re playing”.
The Warriors have still managed to score at a competent rate this year when Curry, Klay and Green are seated at the same time, per NBAWowy.
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“Obviously nobody wanted it to end and you want every night for it to be another notch in that belt for the streak, Curry said”. “But tonight it didn’t go our way”. “But ending up with our first loss, you can kind of appreciate what we were able to accomplish”. Golden State made it to 28, if you count the four victories in April at the end of last season, or 24 if you don’t.
