Bucks vs Warriors:
When: 10:00 PM ET, Wednesday, March 6, 2024
Where: Chase Center, San Francisco, California
The Milwaukee Bucks continue a survey of the NBA’s Pacific Division, only this time on the road, when they open a four-game California swing against the Golden State Warriors on Wednesday night in San Francisco.
The Bucks had played just three of their first 61 games against Pacific rivals until beating the Los Angeles Clippers 113-106 at home on Monday before heading west.
Not only will the Bucks play four of the five Pacific teams in the next seven days, but they will also complete a full examination of the division when they host the Phoenix Suns in the second game of their next homestand.
Milwaukee has gone 3-1 against Pacific competition so far, including a 129-118 home win over the Warriors in January. Stephen Curry and Draymond Green did not play in that game.
Also, Klay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins, Dario Saric and Kevon Looney started that contest for Golden State. It’s possible none will be with the first group in the rematch, with Green and Curry now back in action and Thompson having been replaced by Brandin Podziemski.
However, Wiggins returned to the team Tuesday after being away to attend to a personal matter. He missed the past four games and is expected to play against the Bucks.
“I had to take care of what I had to take care of, be present for that and then when I think it’s an appropriate time to come back, that’s what I felt like,” Wiggins said after Tuesday’s practice. “I’m back here with the team and ready to get to it.”
A Wisconsin native, Podziemski had 23 points and 10 rebounds as a starter in the earlier homecoming against the Bucks. He missed the last two games of Golden State’s 3-1 Eastern Conference trip with a right knee injury, but the Warriors expect him back for the opener of a three-game homestand.
“Some of the stuff that he does, you can’t teach,” Warriors star Stephen Curry said of the rookie, the 19th overall pick in the 2023 draft. “There’s a feel. … Being in the right place, anticipating plays, hustle. … He’s a master right now of the things that you can control in the game of basketball.”
While the Warriors have won 11 of their past 14 games, the Bucks have been the hotter of the two teams as of late. They’ll take a six-game winning streak onto the Golden State court.
Damian Lillard turned back the clock with a 41-point explosion in Monday’s win over the Clippers, giving him momentum to carry into a homecoming of his own against the Warriors.
A former high school star in Oakland and 11-year standout for the Portland Trail Blazers, Lillard has faced the Warriors 48 times in his career, including the postseason, and half of those games have been in Oakland or San Francisco.
He hasn’t returned to the San Francisco Bay Area as a Buck and rarely had team success with the Trail Blazers, losing his four most recent visits and 21 of the 24 in all.
Lillard said the change to Doc Rivers, a former Clippers coach who often crossed paths with Portland in the past, has helped produce better individual results.
“When he came in,” Lillard noted, “he was just like, ‘You guys (the Bucks) don’t run this? You guys don’t run that? Like, this is stuff we hated to guard against you.'”
The Bucks were without Giannis Antetokounmpo on Monday, as he has been bothered by left Achilles soreness in recent weeks. He was declared out after experiencing some pain during warmups.
Rivers expects to have to make another day-of-game call on Wednesday, as the club listed Antetokounmpo as questionable on Tuesday.
“(The pain has) been on and off the last two or three games,” Rivers reported.
Antetokounmpo had a team-high 33 points in the earlier win over Golden State.
–Field Level Media
