The Milwaukee Bucks are playing some of their basketball of the season as the start of the postseason looms.
The Bucks have won five games in a row as they host the New Orleans Pelicans on Thursday night. It matches their longest win streak since a season-best seven-game streak from mid-November until early December.
The most recent victory by the Bucks (45-34) was the most improbable. They trailed visiting Minnesota by 24 points in the fourth quarter before scoring 23 straight points and finishing the game on a 39-8 run to win 110-103.
It was forward Bobby Portis’ first game after serving a 25-game suspension for violating the NBA’s drug policy.
“There was new energy out there,” guard Kevin Porter Jr. said. “We got our man back. Bobby, man, he gave us life.”
Portis finished with 18 points and 10 rebounds, and Milwaukee’s comeback began when it held the Wolves scoreless for more than five minutes.
“(Portis) saw how the game was going and his dynamic came out,” said Porter, who scored 21 points. “He huddled us all together and said, âHow do we want to go out?’ He said it’s a long game and this win will be a little bit of the playoffs, how it feels. We heard him and we responded well.”
The victory gave Milwaukee a two-game lead over the Detroit Pistons, whom they face in a home-and-home set of games Friday and Sunday to conclude the regular season, for the No. 5 seed in the Eastern Conference.
The Bucks can secure at least the fifth spot before heading to Detroit if they beat the Pelicans and the Pistons lose to visiting New York on Thursday.
Portis’ return enhanced a group that already was in a good spot. Giannis Antetokounmpo had his third consecutive triple-double when he finished with 23 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists against Minnesota.
Antetokounmpo sat out a 111-107 victory at New Orleans on Sunday because of soreness in his left shoulder.
The Pelicans (21-58), who will be playing their final road game of the season, are 7-33 away from home after a 119-114 loss at Brooklyn on Tuesday. They are playing without eight of their top nine scorers.
New Orleans, which has lost its last four games, trailed Brooklyn by one point at halftime, but got outscored 43-26 in the third quarter as the Nets had their highest-scoring quarter of the season. The Pelicans got as close as four points in the final minute, but the third quarter produced too big a hole for them to climb out of.
“The end of the game group was good all game pretty much,” head coach Willie Green said. “They fought, they competed, they played hard, played together. We have to learn as a young group and really even with our first unit to have a sense of urgency at the start of the game. There were too many moments in there where our sense of urgency wasn’t high.”
The Pelicans, who will finish with the second-worst record in franchise history, finish the season with home games against Miami on Friday and Oklahoma City on Sunday.
