The Milwaukee Bucks opened the home portion of their schedule with a hard-fought 98-95 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves Tuesday night.
In the third quarter, Milwaukee opened up a 20-point lead, only to see it nearly get frittered away when they went cold from the field and Minnesota seemingly couldn't miss.
Former Wisconsin Badgers star Jon Leuer, a Minnesota native, iced the game for the Bucks with a basket and a foul with 1:17 remaining. After Leuer converted the free throw, Milwaukee led 97-92 and never looked back.
Brandon Jennings led the Bucks with 24 points on 7-14 shooting from the field. However, it was his late free throws that helped seal Milwaukee's first win of the season. Stephen Jackson chipped in 16 points and Andrew Bogut had 15 before fouling out with more than two minutes left. But clearly the breakout star of the game was Leuer, who was pressed into additional duty because of injuries to Carlos Delfino and Luc Mbah a Moute, plus the one-game suspension for a flagrant foul assessed to starting power forward Drew Gooden the night before.
Leuer hit five of his seven shots for 14 points and pulled down 8 huge rebounds for Milwaukee (1-1), who staved off an incredible individual performance by Minnesota's Kevin Love (31 points, 20 rebounds).
Love's last second desperation three-point attempt fell short, as Milwaukee grabbed both the rebound and the victory as time expired.
"We had a lot of good moments like we did last night," Bucks coach Scott Skiles said to reporters after the game. "Unfortunately in both games when we got a big lead we just got really careless and really sloppy. We know we need to play better than that."
Up next for the Bucks, another home game Friday vs. Washington.
Doug Russell has been covering Milwaukee and Wisconsin sports for over 20 years on radio, television, magazines, and now at OnMilwaukee.com.
Over the course of his career, the Edward R. Murrow Award winner and Emmy nominee has covered the Packers in Super Bowls XXXI, XXXII and XLV, traveled to Pasadena with the Badgers for Rose Bowls, been to the Final Four with Marquette, and saw first-hand the entire Brewers playoff runs in 2008 and 2011. Doug has also covered The Masters, several PGA Championships, MLB All-Star Games, and Kentucky Derbys; the Davis Cup, the U.S. Open, and the Sugar Bowl, along with NCAA football and basketball conference championships, and for that matter just about anything else that involves a field (or court, or rink) of play.
Doug was a sports reporter and host at WTMJ-AM radio from 1996-2000, before taking his radio skills to national syndication at Sporting News Radio from 2000-2007. From 2007-2011, he hosted his own morning radio sports show back here in Milwaukee, before returning to the national scene at Yahoo! Sports Radio last July. Doug's written work has also been featured in The Sporting News, Milwaukee Magazine, Inside Wisconsin Sports, and Brewers GameDay.
Doug and his wife, Erika, split their time between their residences in Pewaukee and Houston, TX.
