Milwaukee Bucks faced an uphill climb on Wednesday night. They took on the best team in basketball, the Houston Rockets. This squad led by James Harden and Chris Paul are also the hottest team in basketball. Milwaukee has been known to end streaks before like they did with Golden State a year ago, but last night did not feature a streak-ending. Instead, Houston kept them at about nine to 10 point distance for the entire second half, and Milwaukee could never make a stop to turn the tide. They fall 110-99.

Guys not named James Harden beat Milwaukee last night
Other than the second quarter, James Harden did not do much. He finished with 26 points, but the bigger problem for Milwaukee is everyone around him ate at different points of the game. Maybe it’s why Houston is so successful, but it’s the reason Milwaukee couldn’t close the gap. Chris Paul got hot for awhile then Eric Gordon would add some points plus they received an unexpected boost from Luc Richard Mbah Moute who had 11 points in this one. Milwaukee should have cut everyone else off and let Harden get his in this one because the sum of the Rockets was definitely greater than one player.

Missing The President and Delly
Interesting move by Milwaukee to play only three guys off the bench – Jabari Parker, Sterling Brown and Jason Terry. They did not seem interested in watching Thon Maker fumble the basketball in this one, nor did any of the young guys deserve to get shine in this one. This game made you miss Malcolm Brogdon and Matthew Dellavedova. I feel like we’re seeing the effects of those two guys being out against good teams especially. Delly and Brogdon could have definitely added an element to this game.

The gauntlet is over
Milwaukee can at least know that hopefully better times are coming for them. They play a weak schedule for the next two weeks before a showdown in Cleveland a couple Mondays from now. Bucks will get New York, Memphis, Orlando and Atlanta in the next two weeks. All four of those teams would like to lose every game for the rest of the season. Milwaukee needs to go 3-1 at worst, a split is no longer an option with how poorly they played over the last two weeks.

Next up
Gutcheck time for Milwaukee. I’m curious to know where the team’s head at versus New York. Of the four games, I could see this being a struggle only from the fact that they’ve been beat up and run ragged for the last two weeks by the league’s best. New York is coming in losers of their last 13 of 14 and abysmal West Coast swing. We’ll see if Milwaukee can turn it around.

Charlie.