Red-hot Bucks complete a perfect month of February with comeback win over Nets

Milwaukee has won 15 games in a row and now owns the best record in the league

Fear the deer.

No team in the league is playing better basketball than the Milwaukee Bucks these days. With a 118-104 come-from-behind road victory over the Brooklyn Nets on Tuesday, the Bucks have now won 15 games in a row, extending the league's longest winning streak of the season, and completing a perfect month of February. The victory puts them at 44-17, vaulting them to the NBA's best record. 

"It's really fun, it's really fun," Giannis Antetokounmpo said. "We haven't done it in a long time. Right now we're playing great basketball, we're playing together, guys are making shots, we're defending, we're out there competing, we're doing whatever it takes to win, we're building good habits. So it's fun. It's fun right now."

For much of the game, it appeared as though the Bucks' streak may be coming to an end. The Nets were on fire from 3-point land and jumped out to a 15-point lead in the first quarter. As late as the middle of the third quarter, they still had a double-digit advantage. Eventually, though, Antetokounmpo and the Bucks' relentlessness proved to be too much. Milwaukee closed the third quarter on a 14-2 run to seize the lead for good. 

Antetokounmpo, who was back in the lineup after sitting out of the Bucks' win on Sunday over the Phoenix Suns with a quad contusion, finished with a highly-efficient 33 points, 15 rebounds and four assists on 15 of 27 from the field in only 28 minutes. The two-time MVP was dealing with a sprained wrist entering the All-Star break, then suffered the quad contusion in the first game back. Thankfully for him and the Bucks, neither proved to be serious. 

"There's gonna be a lot of nagging injuries, you gotta listen to your body," Antetokounmpo said. "But I'm happy to be out here with my teammates, I'm happy we were able to get the win and I'm happy to leave this floor healthy."

The Bucks' 15-game winning streak is the fourth-longest in franchise history and the longest in the league since late 2021 when the Phoenix Suns won 18 games in a row from Oct. 30-Dec. 2. This is the 13th time in the last decade that an NBA team has won this many games in a row. 

In addition, the Bucks have completed a perfect month (10-0) for the fourth time in franchise history. The others were October 2022 (6-0), October 2018 (7-0) and March 1973 (13-0). In an interesting bit of trivia, the title-winning 1970-71 Bucks went 66-16. That season included a 20-game winning streak, yet while that record and streak are tops in franchise history that team never had a perfect month.