Antetokounmpo continues MVP push in Bucks’ win over Kings; DiVincenzo knew their plays
Kings guard Donte DiVincenzo admitted he had a little more “juice” when he faced his former team for the first time Wednesday night at Golden 1 Center. He also had the playbook.
The Kings came up short in a 135-126 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks with former general manager Vlade Divac, three-time NFL MVP Brett Favre and former UFC champion Chuck Liddell sitting courtside. Turnovers proved to be their undoing, but the Kings showed some fight with DiVincenzo and rookie Davion Mitchell coming off the bench to lead an inspired effort against the defending NBA champions.
“I couldn’t be prouder of the way these guys competed,” interim Kings coach Alvin Gentry said. “I felt for 48 minutes, we just hung in there. We battled a really, really good, elite team, and had opportunities at the end of the day. They just made a couple plays down the stretch that we didn’t make, but from a competitive standpoint, I thought we did everything we could possibly do to try to win the game.”
Giannis Antetokounmpo continued to build his case for a third MVP award, posting 36 points and 10 rebounds to record his fifth consecutive 30-point game. Khris Middleton had 32 points, eight rebounds and eight assists for the Bucks (44-26), who are second in the Eastern Conference. Jrue Holiday added 21 points, four rebounds and four steals.
Domantas Sabonis had 22 points, five rebounds and seven assists for the Kings (25-46), who were trying to knock off another top contender after beating the Chicago Bulls on Monday. De’Aaron Fox, who has been unstoppable over the past month, had a tough night after hurting his right hand, finishing with 21 points on 8-of-23 shooting with nine turnovers.
The Kings led 31-28 at the end of the first quarter. They went up by eight early in the second, but the Bucks staged a 13-2 to take a 55-52 lead on a jumper by Middleton with 4:12 to play in the opening half.
Milwaukee carried a 68-61 lead into the halftime break and went up by 11 early in the third quarter. The Kings came back to cut the deficit to one on a 3-pointer by Trey Lyles, but the Bucks were up 101-92 going into the fourth. Fox hit a tough shot to give the Kings a 111-110 lead with 6:51 remaining. Sacramento led 123-120 following a three-point play by Fox with 3:50 to play, but Middleton, Antetokounmpo and Jrue Holiday came up with big baskets down the stretch to help Milwaukee pull away.
Mitchell had 19 points on 8-of-13 shooting with three 3-pointers. The 6-foot guard also spent significant time guarding Middleton, a 6-7 forward who is a three-time All-Star. DiVincenzo had 19 points on 7-of-14 shooting from the field and 4-of-8 shooting from 3-point range with four rebounds and three steals.
“You can see tonight what Donte brings to the table,” Gentry said. “There’s a toughness about him that rubs off on the other guys when he’s out there. Same thing with Davion. I thought Davion did a — I know Middleton ended up with 32 points — but I thought Davion did a great job on him when he guarded him. From a size standpoint, obviously, he’s at a disadvantage, but I just thought he got into him and he was physical with him and probably did as good a job as anyone is going to do on him from the standpoint of making him take tough shots.”
DiVincenzo spent four seasons with the Bucks and started 66 games for last year’s NBA championship team before coming to the Kings last month in the four-team trade that sent Marvin Bagley III to the Detroit Pistons.
“It was funny because they were calling out plays and I knew every one,” DiVincenzo said. “You could see, like side-out-of-bounds, baseline-out-of-bounds, the one I stole from Khris, just knowing what they were doing. I was just trying to reiterate what they were doing, and it felt good knowing that stuff and being able to communicate with the team.”
DiVincenzo was asked how long he had been looking forward to playing his former team.
“I’ve been asked that question a lot in the last couple days,” he said. “For me, it was just the next game. I think it was cool to see familiar faces before the game. Trying to lock in to the game, Brook (Lopez) coming up to me in the layup lines and messing with me and stuff. It’s good to see familiar faces, but when you boil it down to basketball, it’s just our next game, trying to get better. I don’t care if we’re playing the Bucks or … it doesn’t matter what team we’re playing. Just trying to get better every day. Trying to establish good habits here, from top to bottom with the team, but, obviously, personal connections stuff, you get a little bit more energy, a little bit more juice coming in against those guys, so it was fun.”
DiVincenzo returned to a backup role after making his first start for the Kings in place of Justin Holiday in Monday’s 112-103 victory over the Bulls. Holiday was cleared to play after missing the game against the Bulls due to illness.
Gentry said he considered starting DiVincenzo again, but he elected to go back to Holiday, who had eight points, two rebounds and two assists in 19 minutes in a matchup with his brother, Jrue.
“Yeah, I think that’s something that we would look at, and really (we) thought about doing it tonight,” Gentry said. “… We liked the group that was out there starting, but, yeah, there’s a possibility that could happen.”
This story was originally published March 17, 2022 at 1:52 AM.
