March was a good month for the Bucks. They went 14-4, with the 14 wins marking the most in the NBA for March and the third-most victories in a month in franchise history. Milwaukee began March six games under .500, with a 26-32 record, and went into the month of April a season-high four games over .500 at 40-36. The Bucks had a season-long six-game winning streak from March 3 to 11, which was their longest in five years; they went 4-2 during a six-game West Coast road swing, winning four games on a single road trip for the first time since the 1988-89 season; and they swept four out of the five back-to-back sets they played in March.
So it was a very good month indeed for the team. But it was also a great month for a couple of individuals on the Bucks. The NBA announced Monday that head coach Jason Kidd was named the Eastern Conference Coach of the Month and forward Giannis Antetokounmpo was the East’s Player of the Month for March. For Kidd, it was his third such honor, having been named Coach of the Month twice in 2014 during his tenure with Brooklyn; Antetokounmpo won the award for the first time in his career.
Under Kidd, the Bucks had the Eastern Conference’s best winning percentage (.778) in March and their most wins in a month since February of 1971. Milwaukee entered March in 10th place in the conference standings and finished the month in fifth place, leaping up the playoff seedings with five games remaining. Kidd is the sixth head coach in franchise history to win Coach of the Month, and the first since Scott Skiles in February of 2010.
On the court, Antetokounmpo spearheaded the Bucks’ surge, averaging 22.4 points (on 51.4 percent field-goal shooting), 8.4 rebounds, 4.9 assists, 1.8 blocks and 1.4 steals per game during March. He posted at least 20 points in 13 games last month, while scoring more than 30 three times and recording five double-doubles. Antetokounmpo shot 50 percent or better from the field 11 times, and he had six games with multiple blocks and steals.
Antetokounmpo’s Player of the Month award was the first for a Buck since Michael Redd won it in January of 2004. In February, Antetokounmpo had become the first Milwaukee player since Redd in 2004 to be an All-Star, as the Greek Freak was named a starter. He joins Redd, Terry Cummings (January 1985) and Sidney Moncrief (December 1981) as the only four Bucks players to earn Eastern Conference Player of the Month honors.
Some highlights of the month for Antetokounmpo: In a win over New York on March 8, he tallied 32 points with 13 rebounds, seven assists, four steals and two blocks. During a victory at Sacramento, Antetokounmpo recorded with 32 points, 14 boards and five assists, while he notched 34, 13 and five in a Bucks win over Atlanta on March 24. To close out the month, he helped Milwaukee beat Detroit in overtime on March 31, finishing one assist shy of a triple-double with 28 points, 14 rebounds and nine assists.
Then, Antetokounmpo got off to a great start in April, teaming with Mountain Dew to pull a pretty terrific prank on unsuspecting fans at a Milwaukee bus stop.
The Bucks have five games left, four of which are on the road. Milwaukee plays at Oklahoma City on Tuesday, at Indiana on Thursday and at Philadelphia on Saturday. The Bucks return home to host Charlotte on April 10, before concluding the regular season at Boston on April 12. Milwaukee is one game ahead of Atlanta (39-38) for the fifth seed in the East; if the current conference playoff picture holds, the Bucks would return to the postseason for the first time since 2015 and face fourth-seeded Washington in the first round.
Born in Milwaukee but a product of Shorewood High School (go ‘Hounds!) and Northwestern University (go ‘Cats!), Jimmy never knew the schoolboy bliss of cheering for a winning football, basketball or baseball team. So he ditched being a fan in order to cover sports professionally - occasionally objectively, always passionately. He's lived in Chicago, New York and Dallas, but now resides again in his beloved Brew City and is an ardent attacker of the notorious Milwaukee Inferiority Complex.
After interning at print publications like Birds and Blooms (official motto: "America's #1 backyard birding and gardening magazine!"), Sports Illustrated (unofficial motto: "Subscribe and save up to 90% off the cover price!") and The Dallas Morning News (a newspaper!), Jimmy worked for web outlets like CBSSports.com, where he was a Packers beat reporter, and FOX Sports Wisconsin, where he managed digital content. He's a proponent and frequent user of em dashes, parenthetical asides, descriptive appositives and, really, anything that makes his sentences longer and more needlessly complex.
Jimmy appreciates references to late '90s Brewers and Bucks players and is the curator of the unofficial John Jaha Hall of Fame. He also enjoys running, biking and soccer, but isn't too annoying about them. He writes about sports - both mainstream and unconventional - and non-sports, including history, music, food, art and even golf (just kidding!), and welcomes reader suggestions for off-the-beaten-path story ideas.
