Zach LaVine’s 31 points led a quartet of Sacramento scorers to post at least 24 as the Kings snapped a three-game losing skid with a135-133 road win over the Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday.
LaVine shot 6 of 13 from 3-point range on his way to his fifth game of 30-plus points in six contests this season. He joined DeMar DeRozan with 29 points, Domantas Sabonis scoring a season-high 24 points, and Dennis Schroder with another 24 points to help Sacramento hold the Bucks off during a wild fourth quarter.
The Kings, playing the third date of a four-game road swing, built a lead of 11 points in the third quarter and kept Milwaukee at a cushion of around nine points into the final period.
However, Kyle Kuzma went on a tear with 16 straight Milwaukee points in the fourth quarter to keep the Bucks in striking distance. He finished with 22 points.
Teammate Giannis Antetokounmpo followed Kuzma’s spurt by scoring 11 team points in a row later in the period, and the Bucks pulled within two points in the final three minutes.
Milwaukee trimmed the deficit to 133-132 with 50 seconds left on a Myles Turner 3-pointer, then had an opportunity to take its first lead since early in the third quarter after forcing DeRozan into a contested elbow-range jumper as the shot clock expired.
The Bucks came up empty, however, as Antetokounmpo threw a wild, jumping pass that deflected off the rim. Schroder pushed the lead back to three points with a pair of made foul shots, then the Kings defense denied Milwaukee a clean look at a would-be game-tying 3-point attempt.
LaVine astutely fouled AJ Green in the closing seconds before Green had an opportunity to hoist a potential overtime-forcing shot, sending Green to the free-throw line needing to intentionally miss the second attempt.
Antetokounmpo rebounded the line-drive shot — part of his 26-point, 11-rebound double-double — but was unable to attempt a putback before the buzzer with Kings defenders swarming him.
The Bucks out-shot the Kings from the field, 59.8% (49 of 82) to 51.7% (45 of 87), but Sacramento thrived at getting to the free-throw line. The Kings shot 35 of 40 from the charity stripe to Milwaukee’s 20 of 31.
Antetokounmpo went 9 of 14 on free-throw attempts.
The partisan Milwaukee crowd erupted in boos as Sacramento repeatedly got to the line late in the game. The tightly called second half included the ejection of Cole Anthony for the Bucks, who finished with just three points in 13 minutes.
