The Portland Trail Blazers (2-1) are no longer undefeated to start the season, but it took an MVP-caliber effort to do it.
Portland fell 113-110 to the Milwaukee Bucks (2-1) Saturday night behind Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo’s career-high 44 points on 17-of-23 shooting from the field to go with eight rebounds and three assists. The Blazers were led by Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum’s 26 points apiece in the team’s fourth consecutive defeat at Milwaukee.
A break-neck-paced first quarter saw the Blazers up 26-24 at the first intermission, led by Lillard’s seven points in the period. Though Portland would find itself up by nine in the opening minutes of the second, an 18-7 Bucks run saw the home team reverse its fortunes to go into halftime up 60-55 thanks to Antetokounmpo’s 21 first-half points.