Bucks battle for ‘ugly’ win over Magic but know they ‘have to get better’

MILWAUKEE — For the last 11 days, the Milwaukee Bucks have done what they were supposed to do.

The NBA’s schedule makers gave them a six-game homestand, and the Bucks took advantage. After falling to the Indiana Pacers in the semifinals of the inaugural In-Season Tournament, the Bucks have won six straight games, including Thursday’s 118-114 victory over the Orlando Magic.

The win over the Magic was not pretty. The Bucks shot just 42.2 percent from the field and 29.7 percent from the 3-point line, and they committed 13 turnovers. But they still managed to pull out a win, and they led the entire second half. While much of the homestand featured the Bucks putting up massive offensive numbers, they pulled out Thursday’s victory in a different way.

“A win is a win,” Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo said after putting up 37 points, 10 rebounds and six assists. “Ugly, I think this was an ugly game in terms of that we didn’t build as much good habits as we would want. Hopefully, going to New York, we can be locked in, play good basketball, put ourselves in position to win.”

Looking across the stat sheet, it boggles the mind how the Bucks pulled out the win. Because of 13 offensive rebounds, the Magic took more shots than the Bucks, and their shooting percentage (45.5 percent) was higher than that of the Bucks. The Magic committed only seven turnovers. And yet, the Bucks emerged victorious, and they did so for one reason, in particular: the free-throw line.

The Bucks went 31-of-35 (88.6 percent) from the free-throw line, while the Magic attempted only 23 free throws and shot 69.6 percent at the charity stripe. Some of that advantage was because of the Magic chasing the game late and sending the Bucks to the free-throw line. This season, the Bucks have been among the league’s best at getting to the line. That has been a strength for the Magic as well, who are tied for third with the Bucks in free-throw rate this season, per Cleaning the Glass. But it was a clear advantage for the Bucks on Thursday.

Two of the game’s biggest moments were three-shot fouls drawn in the fourth quarter by Damian Lillard, who tallied 24 points, five rebounds and eight assists.

On the first play, the Bucks failed to get anything going offensively for an entire possession, then veteran guard Gary Harris bailed them out with a bad foul on a Lillard 3-point attempt.

“Well, the first one was just end of the shot clock,” Lillard said. “I got the ball and I looked at the opposite clock and it was like two seconds. So I knew he was going to contest it because he knew I had to shoot it as well, and I kind of double-pumped. And as I was coming down, I felt him, right there underneath me. And I came down and our feet could have got tangled up and I really was just trying to roll with the fall, so I didn’t actually hurt my ankle. And I got that call.”

A few minutes later, Harris committed a much more reasonable foul on Lillard, but it was a…