Nets drop third straight game to Bucks in 118-104 loss

BROOKLYN — The Nets’ inability to close out games continued on Tuesday night as Brooklyn dropped its third consecutive game in a 118-104 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks at Barclays Center.

It was another example of a game in which the Nets played well enough to hang with the Eastern Conference-leading Bucks, but they couldn’t find a way to hang on when it mattered most. The Nets had led for the entire first half, but it never truly felt like they had control of the game and the Bucks erased two separate 10-point leads in the third quarter to gain control of the game.

Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo turned it on in the second half of the game as well and scored 21 of his 33 total points in the fourth quarter of the game.

“We don’t have time to make excuses,” Spencer Dinwiddie said after the loss. “I think an MVP played like an MVP, but we also had things we could have done against that. “And like I said, we don’t have time for fatigue. We got to try to come together as quickly as possible and make this thing happen.”

Bobby Portis hit a three with 1:28 remaining in the quarter to give the Bucks their first lead since the 10:24 mark of the first. Khris Middleton made a running layup to put the Bucks up 87-84 and then knocked down a turnaround shot moments later to make it a five-point game.

Milwaukee had taken a 91-85 lead by the end of the third quarter and continued to build on it in the final frame. Brooklyn’s shooting fell off in the final quarter as well with the Nets shooting 2-for-11 in the first six minutes of the fourth quarter.

The Nets finished the game shooting 36-for-83 from the field as they dropped to 2-7 since Kyrie Irving was traded to Dallas, kicking off a dramatic series of events that changed the makeup of the team.

Mikal Bridges finished the game with 31 points and shot 11-of-19 from the floor, while spencer Dinwiddie had 26 points and shot 50% from three-point range. Cam Johnson had 19 points as the Nets’ starters logged a high number of minutes in the game.

I think you saw the last two games the minutes have been increasing with that starting five,” Nets coach Jacque Vaughn said. “And I think overall that will continue. You know when I came back from the break I told our group there was 24 games that we have left and we’re going to take each game extremely serious, and try to win each game. “Wasn’t really concerned about this being the back-to-back play. Played those guys heavy minutes to try to give ourselves a chance inn the first half. But you gave Milwaukee credit for responding.”

The loss comes as the Nets hit an increasingly tough swing of games with a meeting with the Knicks on Wednesday and a trip to Boston to face the Celtics on Friday. Brooklyn has dropped into sixth in the East with the Miami Heat right quickly catching them.

The Nets had started off the game well and quickly jumped in front of the Bucks. Brooklyn built a 15-point lead with a 17-2 run in the first quarter and stifled the ability of Antetokounmpo through the first 24 minutes of the game.

Brooklyn caused seven turnovers in the first quarter alone and had 12 in the first half of the game.