The Milwaukee Bucks split a home back-to-back set with a 125-111 loss to the Golden State Warriors on Monday night at Fiserv Forum.

The Bucks dropped to 28-25 overall and will head to Minnesota, where they will finish their  on Wednesday.

Without star Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Bucks couldn’t quite get over the hump in the second half against the Warriors as newly acquired Jimmy Butler scored key points and made key stops to prevent the Bucks from flipping the scoreboard in their favor.

Milwaukee took a brief lead and tied the score late in the third quarter, but Butler scored Golden State’s final six points to give his team an 89-83 lead into the fourth. The Bucks pulled to within 90-92 early in the fourth, but a Butler steal set up a Warriors three-pointer early in the fourth to give his team an 98-90 lead with 9 minutes, 35 seconds to go in the game – a margin that they only built upon after that.

The Warriors also scored 31 points off 20 Bucks turnovers.

“I think we were a little loose, couple if not a lot of them were live ball turnovers, some deflections, run-outs, I think that’s where you see their points off turnovers really affected us,” Bucks forward Kyle Kuzma said. “Offensive rebounds, we didn’t do a good job of that. They got a lot more than us – 15 to 5 – and they probably at least 15-plus more shots than us. Tough to win when you have those type of deficits.”

After playing 44 minutes in a  Damian Lillard logged 39 against the Warriors in scoring 38 points on 12 of 20 shooting. He also made 11 of 13 free throws. The all-star also had a team-high seven assists. Kyle Kuzma and Taurean Prince added 19 each for Milwaukee.

Butler finished with 20 points, 12 coming on free throws. Stephen Curry had 38 points for Golden State and went 6 of 16 from behind the three-point line. Buddy Hield (16), Moses Moody (13) and Quinten Post (13) also reached double figures for the Warriors.

Bucks can’t make enough threes to topple Warriors

In its two games against Atlanta and Philadelphia, Milwaukee hoisted an incredible 105 three-pointers, but the Bucks followed that up with just 33 attempts against Golden State.

The Bucks came into the game averaging 43.8 three-point attempts when Antetokounmpo doesn’t play (up from their season average of 37.5 attempts) and the Warriors wanted to limit those attempts.

“Well, they make more threes than anybody in the league, I think, without; when Giannis sits,” Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said before the game. “They’re launching threes – they’re averaging (18) made threes when he doesn’t play. Watching (Sunday vs. Philadelphia) they were filling it up. So, it’s a different challenge. Obviously they’re not as good without Giannis, that goes without saying, but they’re different and they spread the floor more in some cases and put a lot of pressure on you.”

Kuzma acknowledged that the 33 attempts were not enough and the Warriors clearly had a game plan to run the Bucks off the line.

“They wanted us to score in the two-point range and it affected us,” Kuzma said. “Obviously if you watched our past two games at least, we shot the ball really well from three, especially (Sunday) as well and they took that away, making us play a lot in two-point range. Ball was really stagnant tonight. We didn’t really necessarily move it as well as we have for stretches.”

Kerr, of course, was right on with his stats as the Bucks make 17.9 triples in all those attempts without Antetokounmpo – for a blistering 40.9% rate. For the season they are the second-best three-point shooting team in the league at 38.8% in making 14.6 per game.

“I think with him out you have another you have another three-point shooter – whoever it is, everybody on our team can really shoot,” Bucks guard AJ Green told the Journal Sentinel. “I think it’s multiple ways to end up with the same result. He draws so much attention that gets us threes and if he’s not playing then there’s more side-to-side actions, there are more drive-kick, drive-kick that also leads to open threes as well. Often times, too, with Dame, I think the past two games he’s been getting blitzed more, or trapped and so two are automatically on him and we can play through the short roll, two-on-ones. We want to shoot threes. We have great shooters, so just keep doing it.”

Unfortunately for the Bucks, they made just 32.3% of their attempts against Golden State. Taurean Prince (5-for-6) was the only regular to make his attempts at a strong clip. Lillard was 3-for-9 while Trent and Green combined to go 2-for-9. Bobby Portis Jr. was 0-for-4. Brook Lopez attempted just one.

Damian Lillard passes Ray Allen for three-point attempts

With his rd passed former Bucks all-star and Hall of Famer Ray Allen for the third-most attempts in NBA history. With 7,433, Lillard trails only Stephen Curry and James Harden for most in league history.

Lillard trails Curry, Harden and Allen for most made threes in a career.

Greenfield’s Brandin Podziemski selected to rising stars game

For the second straight season Warriors guard Brandin Podziemski, who prepped at in Delafield, will participate in all-star weekend for the rising stars team.

The second-year player started the year slowly, shooting just 29.5% from behind the three-point line and 40.4% overall. But after missing 12 games with an injury, he returned on Jan. 23 and came into the Bucks game shooting nearly 40% from behind the three-point line and averaging nearly 15 points per game.

There was some pressure on the 21-year-old, to a degree, as the Warriors sought to replace franchise legend Klay Thompson and lean more into the continued development of young players like Podziemski.

“There’s an expectation you put on yourself after having the rookie year I did,” he told the Journal Sentinel on Monday morning at the Warriors’ shootaround. “Just seeing some of the pieces leave in Chris (Paul) and Klay, you train in the summer to put yourself in that position. Obviously to start the year I didn’t shoot the ball very well, but I think in other facets of the game I still played very well.

“But you know, a lot of people on the outside look at scoring as something that needs to occur for a second-year jump and obviously I wasn’t doing that. So, they kind of look at it like he’s not ready, he can’t do it. But I think that’s just kind of what it is. Through the injury my perspective kind of shifted and you really find kind of who you are when you go through injury, if you really love the sport. And for me, I know I do. It sucked not playing but the game just kind of looks like it slowed down, watching and paying attention to games for 48 minutes so maybe it was a blessing in disguise that it happened.

“What I’m doing now is what I expected to be doing to start the year. I know last summer I put in the time and the work to do that.”

As for the rising stars selection, he was an injury replacement for Oklahoma City Thunder guard Cason Wallace.

“It’s good to be invited to that and we all get an opportunity to showcase what we can do in our event at home in front of the Oakland-San Francisco fans,” Podziemski said of the more than half dozen Warriors players participating in the various competitions over all-star weekend. “I couldn’t be more happy for me and my teammates to do that.”

5 numbers

1: Technical fouls called on Doc Rivers in the game. Earned in the fourth quarter, it was his first of the season.

4-6: Bucks record in the second game of back-to-backs.

5-7: Bucks record without Giannis Antetokounmpo this season.

7: Games left in which active after Monday’s game. The Bucks have 30 regular-season games remaining. Rollins is a two-way player, and players signed to those deals can only be active for 50 games in a season – but  to fully guarantee Rollins’ deal for the rest of the season. The team currently has one open roster spot.

11: Games Giannis Antetokounmpo has missed this season. He can only miss six of the next 30 more to still be eligible for postseason honors such as MVP and all-NBA and all-defensive teams. Players must appear in 65 games under the new collective bargaining agreement signed in 2024 to qualify for such distinctions. A two-time league MVP, Antetokounmpo has made eight straight all-NBA teams and has made five all-defensive teams. He has played in 65 or more games twice (2021-22, 2023-24) in the last five seasons.

Is Giannis playing?

No. The MVP candidate strained a calf last week and has been ruled out until at least after the all-star break. It means n San Francisco in Feb. 16.

Is Stephen Curry playing?

The Warriors guard is questionable to play vs. the Bucks with soreness in his left quadricep. He scored 34 points in 34 minutes against Chicago on Saturday.

Bucks injury report

• Giannis Antetokounmpo, out (left calf strain)
• Pat Connaughton, questionable (left calf strain)
• Damian Lillard, questionable (right hamstring soreness)
• Liam Robbins, questionable (right groin soreness)
• Brook Lopez, probable (right shoulder contusion)

Bucks probable starting lineup

• Guards: Andre Jackson Jr., Gary Trent Jr.
• Forwards: Taurean Prince, Kyle Kuzma
• Center: Brook Lopez

Bucks vs. Warriors odds,