MILWAUKEE — With a 3-point lead, the Milwaukee Bucks were just 33.2 seconds away from their first three-game winning streak Wednesday night. And then, as it so often has in this disappointing season, it all fell apart.
On a sideline inbounds play, the Washington Wizards curled former Bucks forward Khris Middleton to the nearside corner. With Giannis Antetokounmpo trailing behind Middleton, Myles Turner jumped out to help, and the Bucks’ two biggest players on the floor double-teamed Middleton, who calmly found teammate C.J. McCollum for a layup to cut the Bucks’ lead to 2.
After McCollum’s basket, the Bucks ran the clock down to set up a middle pick-and-roll for Kevin Porter Jr. Milwaukee’s starting point guard got all the way to the rim but missed the shot. Antetokounmpo flew in from the corner for an offensive rebound and a putback, but it was rejected by Wizards big man Alex Sarr.
With seven seconds remaining, McCollum corralled the loose ball, pushed it up the floor in transition and knocked down a falling, fadeaway jumper with one second remaining to give the Wizards a 1-point lead.
Antetokounmpo had a clean look at a game winner, but his shot missed long off the back of the rim, and the Wizards pulled off a shocking 114-113 win in Milwaukee.
WHAT A BUCKET TO CLOSE OUT 2025 https://t.co/3hnQgoO0Cl pic.twitter.com/3LbcVnsTAa
— Washington Wizards (@WashWizards) January 1, 2026
“Listen, I don’t care about the end of the game,” Bucks coach Doc Rivers said when asked about the final 33 seconds. “We deserved to lose the game. We didn’t play hard enough. We didn’t play well enough together.”
Though Rivers and Antetokounmpo agreed it would have been much better to learn these lessons with an ugly win, that isn’t what happened Wednesday night. The Bucks (14-20) have now given the Wizards (8-24) two of their eight wins on the season.
After winning two games in a row for the first time since October, the Bucks fell into the bad habits that have them in the 11th spot in the Eastern Conference standings. After Wednesday’s embarrassing loss, the Bucks are now 1 1/2 games back of the Atlanta Hawks for the East’s final Play-In spot.
“We had a lead. We had every shot we wanted at the end of the game,” Rivers continued. “Our execution was flawless, even the last play. But the basketball gods sometimes don’t allow you to win when you don’t play right, and we’ve been great the last two games, and tonight, we didn’t pass the ball.
“We didn’t pass the ball to each other, and we didn’t guard the ball. And so when you play like that, you lose the game.”
After committing only nine turnovers and assisting on 29 of their 44 made baskets in their win over the Charlotte Hornets on Monday, the Bucks committed 15 turnovers and dished out only 24 assists Wednesday as they fell into the trap of playing too much one-on-one basketball and stopped moving the ball.
“I think we didn’t play at a high level,” said Antetokounmpo, who had 33 points, 15 rebounds and three assists. “We didn’t trust one another. We kept them in the game too much. And at the end of the day, we have to understand that; they say that we are going to try to build winning and good habits or we’re not.
“We cannot win a game, two games on the road against two really good teams, in my opinion — Chicago and Charlotte — then come back home and give a game away. We just put ourselves back in the position that we just were. We have a very tough schedule coming up, and every win, every game counts right now.”
After the game, Rivers pointed to his team’s lack of focus in its preparation and readiness for Wednesday’s game.
“I’m very disappointed in how we performed,” Rivers said. “It’s on me, too, because it’s my job to get them going and get them right. This morning, I didn’t think we had a very good shootaround. I didn’t think we were ready. I told our guys that, and we carried it on to tonight.
“It starts with me, always, but that’s a game — and not because they’re Washington — it’s a game that if we had played right, we would have won.”
After the game, Antetokounmpo acknowledged he is not where he would like to be from a conditioning and rhythm standpoint as he works his way back into the fold after missing eight straight games with a right calf strain. Even on a minutes restriction (28 minutes), though, Antetokounmpo still led the Bucks in scoring.
Giannis with a 33 point, 15 rebound double-double. pic.twitter.com/AscDl2ffFg
— Milwaukee Bucks (@Bucks) January 1, 2026
Reflecting on the loss, Antetokounmpo pointed to a problem he believes the Bucks are facing at the moment.
“Sometimes, it’s just hard when maybe some people are trying to do the right thing, and other people are not trying to do the plays. It might be discouraging at times,” Antetokounmpo said. “I’ve been a part of teams, the really good teams, that two, three, four guys try to do the right thing, and they do it, I think, and they pull everybody else. And I’ve been on teams that two, three guys try to do the right thing, and three, four guys not trying to do the right thing, and it pulls the team to the wrong direction.”
Ultimately, Antetokounmpo pointed to his own leadership as something that can help the team turn things around and play with the right purpose more consistently.
“As a leader, I just gotta be better,” Antetokounmpo said. “I have to be better defensively. I have to be better. Gotta move the ball more. I gotta playmake more. I think the offense has gotta be played more around me. I feel like I get the ball only in positions that I gotta score. I gotta playmake better and also try to score. Go back to what I do, put on the cape.”
Milwaukee has one more home game Friday against the Hornets before a four-game Western Conference trip. Eight of the Bucks’ 13 games will be on the road in January. There are winnable games, but that will require bringing a high level of focus and effort to each game, something the Bucks have proved incapable of bringing to games on a nightly basis in 2025.
“We gotta grow, man,” Antetokounmpo said. “We gotta understand what position we are right now, and I feel like a lot of people don’t understand it. Tomorrow’s gonna be January 1st, right?
“We’re 11th in the East. My whole career, when I’ve had winning seasons, like January to February before the break, you gotta stack up wins, and we have a tough schedule. I don’t think people understand this can make us or break us. And I don’t want to break. I want to be made.”