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Lopez held scoreless in fourth as Nets fall to Bucks, 109-100

By Anthony Puccio

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William Hauser-USA TODAY Sports

There's no place like home... besides for the Nets.

The Nets returned home following a nine-game road trip and lost, 109-100, to the Milwaukee Bucks, Sunday night at Barclays Center on Noche Latina. They dropped to 18-48 on the season despite finally returning home after nearly three weeks on the road. That's 30 games under .500!

The Nets led by one heading into the fourth quarter when Sean Kilpatrick, Thomas Robinson and Sergey Karasev carried the Nets as Brook Lopez and Thaddeus Young took their rest. Let's not forget how the bench (excluding Sean Kilpatrick) shot 1-for-12 and combined for only five points in Friday's loss to the Philadelphia 76ers.

This time they helped keep the team afloat behind some heavy lifting from Sean Kilpatrick, who scored 13 of his 19 points in the fourth quarter. The bench scored 38 points tonight.

Brook Lopez, meanwhile, was held scoreless in the fourth as the Bucks consistently went at him with hard double teams, which led to a bad pass or bad shot. They continued to force the offense through him, but it clearly didn't work. He finished with his sixth consecutive game with 20 or more points with 20 points and only three rebounds.

It got ugly down the stretch.

The Nets, who were once up by seven earlier in the fourth, fell down by one with 2:14 remaining when the Bucks answered with a 9-0 run and increased Brooklyn's deficit to 10 with under a minute remaining.

Overall, it was a 31-21 fourth quarter advantage for Milwaukee. To make matters worse, they committed 12 turnovers in the fourth and 20 on the night.

"I wouldn't even say it was their pressure," Thaddeus Young said. "We were throwing the ball all over the place. We had a lot of turnovers that were kind of unforced."

Giannis Antetokounmpo was an absolute beast and carried Milwaukee with a triple double line of 28 points, 14 assists and 11 rebounds. He almost had a triple double at halftime!

"He puts a lot of pressure on you, he's very aggressive and he has a green light," Thaddeus Young said of Antetokounmpo after the game. "Anytime you run into a guy with a green light, he's going to make it hard on you because he knows he can put up however many shots he wants to put up."

His frontcourt partner Jabari Parker chipped in 23.

On a lighter note, Thaddeus Young notched his 26th double double of the year with 17 points and 10 rebounds. Bojan Bogdanovic chipped in 13 points and a career-high seven assists.

The Nets hit on 12 of 27 attempted three-pointers, but ultimately the disappearing act of Lopez and costly turnovers did them in.

Meanwhile, Jason Kidd defended Lopez ... and talked about the positive changes he's seen of late, including the hiring of Sean Marks as GM.  Kidd, of course, had a famous feud with Billy King which ultimately led to Kidd's departure two years ago.

"There’s been a lot of change for him so that’s not fair to put [the record on] him," said Kidd: "Coaches, teammates, practice facilities, arenas. So there’s been change. They’re hopefully [improving], they’ve got someone great now in a sense of [a general manager]. Sean Marks is going to do well. They’ll name a head coach; if not they’ll keep Tony [Brown], hopefully have something consistent and hopefully he’s a part of that."

Lopez is the last player left from Kidd's season as Nets head coach.  All the other 14 players are gone.

New York native Sean Kilpatrick makes his home debut in Brooklyn.

"I was pretty nervous," he said afterwards. "You're playing in basically the heart of New York, so being able to play one of your first games here and get a reaction like that as soon as you step on the court... it was special."

Kilpatrick also mentioned that he had 13 people at the game tonight cheering him on. He's averaged 11 points on 43 percent three-point shooting.

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Next up: Tuesday night at home vs. the 76ers.

For more on the Milwaukee Bucks, check them out at Brew Hoop.

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