Bucks’ comeback: How Bobby Portis inspired the most remarkable win of the season

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MILWAUKEE — After Donte DiVincenzo knocked down his fifth 3-pointer of the night with 10 minutes, 9 seconds remaining on Tuesday, the Minnesota Timberwolves had a 24-point lead, their largest, over the Milwaukee Bucks.

Despite winning four straight games in which they had averaged 122.8 points per game, the Bucks had managed only 71 points in the game’s first 38 minutes and seemed destined to see their winning streak snapped with an ugly loss to the Timberwolves.

But that wasn’t how Bobby Portis wanted his first game back after a 25-game suspension to end, so he informed his teammates they would keep fighting.

“There was new energy out there,” Bucks guard Kevin Porter Jr. said when asked why the Bucks didn’t quit when they went down by 24. “We got our man back. Bobby, man. He gave us life.

“He saw how the game was going and his dynamic came out. He huddled us all together and said, ‘How do we want to go out?’ He said it’s a long game and this win will be a little bit of the playoffs, how it feels. We heard him and we responded well.”

That was a slight understatement from Porter. The Bucks responded remarkably in the next eight minutes and 22 seconds of game action. With a 34-3 run, the Bucks (45-34) flipped the game and pulled off an unbelievable 110-103 win to push their winning streak to five.

The Bucks now hold a two-game lead over the Detroit Pistons for the fifth spot in the Eastern Conference standings. On Thursday, the Bucks host the New Orleans Pelicans while Detroit has a home game against the New York Knicks before the Bucks and Pistons end the season with games against each other on Friday in Detroit and Sunday in Milwaukee. If the Bucks win and the Pistons lose on Thursday, Milwaukee would clinch the fifth spot before heading to Detroit.

Giannis Antetokounmpo was spectacular once again with 23 points, 13 rebounds, and 10 assists, his third consecutive triple-double. Porter Jr. added 21 points, four rebounds, four assists and five steals, and Portis put up a double-double with 18 points and 10 rebounds in his first game since the Bucks’ Feb. 12 win over the Timberwolves in Minnesota. While all three individual performances were noteworthy, Tuesday’s performance was all about the team effort in the comeback to close the game.

With 10:31 remaining and after a brief rest, Antetokounmpo entered the game to play alongside four players — Porter, Portis, AJ Green, Gary Trent Jr. — that Bucks coach Doc Rivers used off the bench against the Timberwolves. To start the fourth quarter, the Bucks moved to a zone defense to slow the game and force Minnesota to beat them with the 3-point shot. It worked with Antetokounmpo and the bench unit on the floor.

“Zone’s an amazing thing,” Rivers said. “If you get a couple of stops, then the third and the fourth, it starts becoming a little mental (with the opponent). … We looked at the numbers and we felt like this is a team we can zone a little bit with some of the lineups they have on the floor.

“And listen, they missed some shots, but we created a lot of turnovers. We rebounded the ball. And more importantly, what it created were stops so we can get out and run. Because we didn’t do that all game because they were scoring every time. So heck of a win.”

Immediately after DiVincenzo’s 3, the Bucks responded quickly by scoring on their next three possessions and putting together an 8-0 run that cut Minnesota’s lead to 16 as Timberwolves coach Chris Finch called a timeout with 9:06 remaining.

Antetokounmpo got a dunk on the Bucks’ first possession out of that timeout, but neither team scored for 90 seconds until Antetokounmpo knocked down a 3 to cut the Wolves’ lead to 11.

After Antetokounmpo’s 3, the Bucks forced a turnover — one of eight committed by the Timberwolves in the fourth — and ran the court, but the Timberwolves got back on defense. Even with all five Bucks running at them, Anthony Edwards and Julius Randle were in position to cut off Porter by the time he reached half court, where they forced Porter to pick up his dribble.

Unfortunately for them, Porter picked up his dribble because he wanted to flip it to Green for a 3 from 32 feet.

“Love it,” Rivers said when asked what he thought when Green pulled up for that 3. “We tell him to jack ’em.”

Green’s audacious transition triple inspired Finch to call another timeout with 6:42 remaining as the Bucks cut the Timberwolves’ lead down to single digits for the first time since midway through the third quarter.

But timeouts were not going to stop the Bucks’ run.

“When you’re in it, you don’t understand it because you think, like, ‘OK, we got four stops, they’re going to score on the fifth possession,’ ” Antetokounmpo said. “And then you get the fifth stop. And then you get the sixth stop. And then you get this seventh stop. And you’re like, ‘Uh oh, when are they going to score?’

“Then you can see it in their eyes. They’re kind of trying to force things, and that’s when you know you’re making a difference. You got them.”

As the Timberwolves got more and more flummoxed offensively, Porter and Trent turned up the pressure at the top of the zone. They pushed Minnesota further from the basket and made passes into the middle of the zone even tougher. Eventually, the only shots the Timberwolves could create were 3-point attempts, and the Bucks used it for fuel for their offense.

It took a little more than six minutes, but eventually Randle ended the Timberwolves’ scoring drought with two free throws with 4:56 remaining. Those free throws ended a 23-0 run, but the Bucks were not done. Three possessions after Randle’s free throws, the Bucks forced another turnover, and Antetokounmpo found Green for a corner 3 in transition to tie the game with 3:35 remaining.

“Everyone in the world knows what AJ can do and what he does,” Porter said. “And that’s be a lights-out shooter and defend. Every shot, I think, is going in when he shoots it, especially when it’s quick and decisive.”

On the next defensive possession, Porter tried to fight over the top of a screen by Minnesota center Rudy Gobert and the two players got tangled up. As Gobert tried to shed Porter, he fell to the ground, and Porter let the Timberwolves’ big man hear about it. As Porter did that, Gobert grabbed his leg and got up off the floor to meet Porter face-to-face.

Porter and Gobert pushed each other, and players from both teams got together to support their teammates, but also quickly separated them. Antetokounmpo sprinted toward the action and immediately pulled Porter away from Gobert. After the officials separated both teams (with assistance from each team’s coaching and security staff), they reviewed the play, assessing a double foul to Porter and Gobert, a double technical to Porter and Gobert and a technical foul to Trent.

A post-play squabble can sometimes serve as the wake-up call for a team needing to get back in the game. It can also be the moment when things unravel again for the team that had fought their way back into the game. After the game, though, Rivers told reporters he felt like he knew his team was going to be able to maintain their comeback because of the player who told him they needed to rein in Porter’s emotions.

“It was so funny,” Rivers said. “When the Rudy and Scoot thing got (going), Bobby came over to me and said, ‘Coach, we gotta calm Scoot down.’ When I heard that, I knew we were in a good place.”

In his first game back after serving a 25-game suspension, rather than escalating the situation, Portis helped calm Porter and got the team focused on trying to win the game. And that is exactly what the Bucks did.

After Edwards knocked down the technical free throw, Trent and Portis traded deflections to create a steal that led to a breakaway dunk for Porter. On the next Timberwolves possession, Porter picked off a pass and ran it the other way for a dunk. Another strong defensive possession forced a late shot-clock 3-point miss by Naz Reid. Antetokounmpo grabbed the rebound and threw it ahead to Porter, who attacked and drew a foul to hit two more free throws.

Then, after six straight points, Porter decided to share the wealth following another steal and set up Antetokounmpo for the exclamation point on one of the most ridiculous comebacks in the NBA this season:

“I’m human at the end of the day,” Porter said. “I felt the play that was made wasn’t a basketball play. We were being physical, but that’s the nature of the game at the end of the day. But having those guys say, ‘Hey, let’s win this game. We need you.’

“Having guys that were, like, ‘Yeah, we probably would have reacted the same, but it’s bigger than this and let’s win this game. We need you.’ That got me re-locked in. I was able to channel that energy. I was hyped, but as you can see, I channeled it into basketball mode and we got the win.”

With veteran leadership to keep him focused on the right things, Porter’s talent is shining in Milwaukee, and his play has been one of the biggest positives for the Bucks in the season’s final month. His energy defensively helped the Bucks flip the game and grab a win despite trailing by 24 points in the fourth quarter.

Now, the Bucks can potentially clinch the East’s fifth spot on Thursday, a possibility that seemed unimaginable at the start of the fourth quarter on Tuesday night.

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(Photo of Naz Reid and Bobby Portis: Michael McLoone / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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