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The Milwaukee Bucks looked to build on their 110-102 victory over the Indiana Pacers on Monday by securing another home win over the Houston Rockets, but fell, losing 132-100.
Houston entered this game as one of four undefeated teams in the NBA, and would leave Milwaukee unblemished as Tyler Herro looked to be the only source of offense for the Bucks. The Rockets got a full team effort with six players finishing the game in double-digits led by Fred VanVleet who scored 24 points, and Amen Thompson who finished with 24 points.
The first half set the tone for Milwaukee as the Bucks couldn't get themselves going offensively, shooting 15-for-48 (31%) from the field and 4-for-24 (17%) from the 3-point line. They dug themselves into a hole against one of the top offenses in the NBA, and couldn't climb out from that point on.
Here are my main takeaways from the game.
If there's one thing that's not wrong with the Bucks, it's Herro. He's clearly been the best player for Milwaukee in the majority of games this season, and it continued once again against the Rockets as he scored 23 points while shooting 9-for-13 (69.2%) from the field and 4-for-6 (66.6%).
In that first half where the Bucks trailed by 22 points at one point, Herro was the only player to score in double-digits scoring 14 points, while the rest of the team combined for 21 points on 9-for-39 (23.08% )shooting from the field.
Jaime Jaquez Jr. picked things up in the second half scoring 12 points, but at that point Milwaukee already had a large deficit that it couldn't overcome. No other player finished over 11 points and it was overall a bad scoring night for everyone not named Herro and Jaquez.
One of those players who had a bad scoring night was Ryan Rollins. It looked like Rollins was getting his rhythm back after two back-to-back games where he scored 15 points against the Philadelphia 76ers, and 19 points against the Pacers, but had a rough one against the Rockets.
Rollins would finish the game with four points, four rebounds and five assists while shooting 2-for-14 (14.2%) from the field. It certainly hasn't been the best start for Rollins this season, and this game adds to the slow start.
There weren't many positives from this game besides Herro and Jaquez coming along in the second half, but when it came to the limited bench scoring, rookies Nate Ament and Brayden Burries provided some sort of production.
The two led the bench in scoring with Burries recording 10 points, rebounds and one steal on 3-for-6 (50%) shooting from the field, while Ament finished with eight points, four rebounds, one steal and one block.
In the blowout, the bench and young guys got to see the floor for the majority of the second half as the starters took a seat, but it was good minutes for the first-round picks from this year's draft that they can use to carry that momentum forward into the next game, especially for Ament, who missed the first two games.