The Bucks won their second NBA Cup game of the season at home against the Hornets
It took four quarters and an overtime period, but the Milwaukee Bucks took down the Charlotte Hornets, 147-134, on Nov. 14 after losing to them just two days ago.
The Bucks came alive in overtime, outscoring the Hornets 18-5 across the extra five minutes of gameplay, ultimately spoiling Kon Knueppel’s Milwaukee homecoming despite him catching fire and dropping a career-high 32 points on his hometown team.
“Knueppel coming out and us not necessarily getting to him right away, and him hitting a lot of those shots in the fourth that really kept them in the game,” Kyle Kuzma said during a postgame interview, detailing what changed during overtime. “I think we covered it up just a little bit. They had to go to different actions.”
Milwaukee continued to showcase its depth in another contest in which several players stepped up, helping the Bucks secure another NBA Cup victory. Kuzma, who started the game for the second contest in a row, paced the Bucks with a double-double, dropping 29 points and grabbing 10 rebounds.
“Whether it’s 15, 17 shots, it’s four shots, it’s still playing the same style [of] basketball, and that’s just credit [to] my teammates finding me on cuts and finding me in transition and stuff like that,” Kuzma said.
Giannis Antetokounmpo was not far behind Kuzma in the scoring column with 25 points. He also tallied 18 assists and seven rebounds, coming just three rebounds shy of a triple-double.
Other players to score in double figures were Ryan Rollins (20 points), Myles Turner (18 points), AJ Green (13 points), Bobby Portis (12 points), Gary Harris (10 points) and Cole Anthony (10 points).
Turner especially came alive in overtime, hitting two big 3-pointers to help the Bucks pull away and silence the Hornets. He tallied six 3-pointers on the night.
It wasn’t just Turner who shot well from 3-point range, however. There was, in fact, a flurry of shots made from distance from both teams throughout the game, which kept things close on the scoreboard until overtime.
Over the course of the contest, the Bucks made 20 3-pointers and the Hornets made 17. Knueppel and Miles Bridges combined for 10 of the Hornets’ 17 long-range shots themselves.
With the win, Milwaukee moves to 8-5 on the young season and 2-0 in NBA Cup play. Against the Hornets, they found a way to win and not break what has become Antetokounmpo’s rule as of late – not losing two games in a row.
Next up for the Bucks are the Los Angeles Lakers, who will pose as another test for Milwaukee in just week four of the 2025-26 NBA season.