Bucks 118, Pacers 101: The long wait ends with a victory at Fiserv Forum
Friday was the night the Milwaukee Bucks have been awaiting for years – their first regular-season game at gleaming new Fiserv Forum.
There were plenty of luminaries in the crowd. All of the team's majority owners were in attendance, as were Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and NBA commissioner Adam Silver. Even with the Milwaukee Brewers playing in Game 6 of the National League Championship Series across town, a sellout crowd of 17,341 roared the Forum to life.
On the court, the Bucks christened their new home with a bevy of dunks and a steady diet of three-pointers as they cruised to a 118-101 victory over the Indiana Pacers.
BOX SCORE: Bucks 118, Pacers 101
RELATED:Henson wows the Fiserv Forum crowd by sinking 2 threes
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“It was great. The energy was great, the atmosphere was fun, the fans were into it. It was packed," Giannis Antetokounmpo said. "I was looking at the crowd right before the game started and it was a great feeling."
Milwaukee got off to an inauspicious start, missing its first seven shots and falling behind 8-0 in slightly more than two minutes. That was all the drama there would be, though, as once the Bucks got going they never slowed down.
After using an 11-2 run to take their first lead, the Bucks never trailed again. Milwaukee went on to lead by as many as 28 and never let the margin dip into single digits in the second half.
“The first couple minutes I don’t know what it was, we were on another planet or something like that," Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer said. "I think they just kind of settled in."
It was Antetokounmpo who steadied the ship with a pair of early dunks. That set the tone for the rest of the night, with Antetokounmpo dominating the paint on the way to 26 points, 15 rebounds and five assists. He went 0 for 7 on three-pointers, including a faux heave before the half. However, sinking those shots becomes less necessary when you go 12 of 16 from two-point range and can get to the bucket at will.
As a team, the Bucks followed Antetokounmpo's lead by looking to go inside often after a slow start from long range. They dropped in 54 points in the paint, for the second successive game almost totally avoiding midrange shots in favor of high-efficiency looks from in the paint and beyond the arc.
"The more we can get to the paint, the more we can attack the basket, collapse the defense and find shooters, that’s when we’re going to be really good," Budenholzer said.
Milwaukee's inside attack helped pave the way for cleaner looks from the outside and the Bucks weren't shy about letting those fly. With 47 three-point tries, the Bucks set a franchise record for attempts from long range. It's a record that may not last long with the way the Bucks plan on letting the ball fly this season.
Of those three-pointers, the Bucks made 17 (36.2%). Khris Middleton did most of the damage, going 5 of 9 from deep on the way to 23 points. Center John Henson, who was 1 of 13 in his career entering Friday, splashed his first two three-point attempts of the night, including beating the buzzer to end the third quarter, sending Fiserv Forum into a frenzy.
"Not in a million years, honestly," Henson said when asked if he ever thought he'd be spacing the floor like he did Friday.
Defensively, the Bucks spent the night steering the Pacers into mid-range shots, a strategy that worked out well throughout the night. Indiana was able to do some damage inside, especially all-star guard Victor Oladipo who finished with 23 points. However, the Pacers' overall output was limited as the Bucks ran them off the three-point line and held their ground in the paint.
With a 17-point lead heading into the final period, all that was left was waiting for the confetti to fall for the first of what the Bucks hope will be many times in their new home.
“New arena, new practice facility, new coach – I’ve said it in the past – this is the right time to be a Buck," Antetokounmpo said. "I’m blessed that I have the opportunity to be with this team playing in this wonderful arena (for) these wonderful fans.”
TAKEAWAYS
ON THE RUN: One thing the Pacers wanted to avoid was letting Antetokounmpo and the Bucks get out in transition. Among many other parts of the night, that didn't go Indiana's way.
The Bucks put up 20 fast-break points on 12 shooting attempts, partly buoyed by the Pacers' 17 turnovers. Those giveaways led to 26 Milwaukee points.
SPEAKING OF TURNOVERS...: For the second game in a row, Antetokounmpo's aggressiveness, which was a net positive, also resulted in a high number of turnovers. After giving the ball away eight times against the Charlotte Hornets, Antetokounmpo was charged with six of the Bucks' 17 turnovers Friday.
“Not being excited and running through guys and not having happy feet and traveling," Antetokounmpo said when asked how he can adjust. "It’s not like I’m throwing the ball all over and giving it to the other team, passing to the wrong players. It’s that I’m basically running through guys (and) traveling. I’ve got to do a better job of taking care of the ball.”
FIRST IMPRESSIONS: Fiserv Forum didn't fill up for the Bucks' preseason tilts, but it did on Friday night. With a packed house, the Forum got very loud, with that noise reverberating throughout the arena.
The BMO Harris Bradley Center used to get rocking, especially during the playoffs, and even with fewer seats, Fiserv Forum seems well set up to be a similarly hostile environment for opposing teams.