Milwaukee Bucks are dealing with the ‘end of the year’ blues. It is not that they’re sad, rather, it’s hard to get up night in, night out against inferior talent. Bucks are in the playoffs, fighting for a one seed and the best overall record in the NBA. Still, it is a challenge to come out against the doldrums of the league. Case in point, the New Orleans Pelicans who are already looking ahead to next season. Bucks came out the gates sluggish and sloppy before turning it on in the third quarter. Bucks had 45 third quarter points which played a large role in Milwaukee’s victory last night.

Player of the Game: Khris Middelton – One of the key cogs of the third quarter success for Milwaukee was Khris Middleton. He scored 14 of his 23 points in the third quarter. Middleton heaters are the best kind of heaters. He seems to wind it up and get going for a quarter or two. One thing that I liked about this one is it happened on the road. If you look at Middleton’s home/road splits, they’re not kind to him on the road. Hopefully, this springboards his confidence away from Fiserv Forum.

Silver Star: Giannis Antetokounmpo – I joked on the podcast today that Giannis needs to start wearing closers jerseys to the games. Mariano Rivera. Trevor Hoffman. Lee Smith. All could be applicable for Giannis. He helped close out New Orleans with a big fourth quarter. Giannis finished the game with 24 points, nine rebounds and five assists. He did not have the minutes like other games due to first half foul trouble.

Positive: Giannis played with foul issues – In the very early stages of that electric third quarter, Giannis picked up his fourth foul. Instead of sending Antetokounmpo to the bench, Mike Budenholzer left him out there. One, that shows a great deal of faith in your star player. Two, this is a good learning experience for Giannis to play with four fouls. He did foul out, but that’s still an important lesson to learn for the young star.

Negative: You have to come ready to play – Look, I know New Orleans is bad, but that doesn’t give the Bucks the excuse to roll out the basketball and attempt to win. It is frustrating as a fan, but know that Milwaukee isn’t alone from the top tier perspective. This week, we had Golden State lose to Phoenix, Toronto lose to Cleveland and a few other close encounters with the bottom feeders of the league. Bucks have to act like they give shit even if the opponent is less than stellar.

Highlight of the night: Khris throws a laser of a pass for a bucket.

Imma ball til they turn off the field lights 🏈#FearTheDeer pic.twitter.com/TFMOrefAkL

— Milwaukee Bucks (@Bucks) March 13, 2019

Next up: Milwaukee heads to Miami where they hope to have more success than they did earlier this year. Unlike the last game, the Bucks get two days off prior to the game against the Heat on Friday night. Miami will try to win their fifth game in six tries against Detroit tonight. Even with Miami’s latest hot streak, they’ve been a bad home team sporting a 15-19 record in South Beach.