Taylor Jenkins Says Bucks Have to Play Perfect For 48 Minutes After Loss to Magic

The Milwaukee Bucks lost to the Orlando Magic on the road Friday night, 107-99, in their second game of NBA Cup play. Orlando controlled the game throughout the four quarters, making it difficult for Milwaukee to come back and take a lead. 

Jaime Jaquez Jr. led the way for the Bucks with a team-high 22 points on 8-for-15 shooting from the field. Tyler Herro played a good game for them as well, finishing with 18. 

Still, the rest of the roster struggled to get open looks on offense, leading to the loss. Guard Gary Trent Jr. had just 1 point in 16 minutes; Ryan Rollins had 8 points on 3-for-8 shooting, and Brayden Burries had just 3 points in 19 minutes. 

After the game, head coach Taylor Jenkins talked about what went wrong in the loss, and he said the Bucks need to perform better for 48 minutes. 

"I mean I think it really starts with, we've got to play a perfect game for 48 minutes," Jenkins said. "It's hard when you are double digits behind." 

He went on to give credit to the Magic, including forward Franz Wagner, who finished the game with 35 points and was one rebound shy of his first career triple-double. 

Moving forward, the Bucks have to find ways to keep themselves in games by being more efficient on offense. This is a team that frequently goes minutes without scoring a field goal, and it hurts them over time. 

Offensively, this team is not cohesive enough to be competitive. There have been too many times when most players have been struggling to shoot the ball from the field, and there's one outlier like Tyler Herro or Jaime Jaquez Jr. that has a solid offensive night.  

Players like Ryan Rollins and Brayden Burries are going to have to put together more consistent performances if they want to go any further than most people think they will. This is a young team, but there have been games that could have gone in their favor if the rest of the team could complement each other on offense. 

Defensively, this team has had their struggles some nights, but that didn't seem to be the main issue against the Magic. There were times when the Bucks played a physical brand of basketball to force turnovers, and that will have to continue throughout the course of the season. 

The Bucks are now 1-12 to start the season, and it will be interesting to see what kind of changes are going to be made to the rotations or roster.