Milwaukee---Jrue Holiday thought the Brooklyn Nets hoped that their team would go past one in the last minute as soon as they got the ball.
Instead, Holiday made a timely delivery to keep the Milwaukee Bucks from falling into a hole no NBA team ever recovered from.
His driving layup with 11.4 seconds put the Bucks ahead for good and they held on to an 86-83 victory Thursday night that took Brooklyn's 2-1 lead in the Eastern Conference semifinals.
"I felt like maybe they thought I was going to call a timeout," Holiday said. “I guess in my mind, I was thinking maybe I should run some clock. But I saw Bruce Brown face to face, so I made a move. It was a good one and I finally made a layoff.”
Kevin Durant's 3-point attempt to tie bounced off the rim as the horn sounded. He scored the last nine points of the Nets and finished with 30.
The Bucks will also try the series in Milwaukee on Sunday.
Milwaukee relied on its defense as a game featuring the two highest-scoring teams from the NBA regular season turned into a defensive slugfest of the 1990s.
Brooklyn had the lowest scoring output of the season. Milwaukee matched their lowest point of the season with their 125–86 Game 2 loss.
Nets coach Steve Nash said, "Someone ugly was going to win." "And it was they tonight."
Khris Middleton scored 35 points, and Giannis Antetokounmpo added 33 points for the Bucks. Middleton made an impressive comeback after scoring a combined 13 of 43 in the first two games of the series.
That was hardly enough.
"At the end of the day, a win is a win," Antetokounmpo said. "It doesn't matter if you win by 30. It doesn't matter if you win by one. You can go back home and celebrate the 'W.'"
The Bucks took a 21-point lead but had to come from behind, scoring the last six points after Durant's 3-pointer made it 83-80 with 1:23.
"We didn't shoot down the stretch," Durant said. "I think we worked there on a few occasions."
Holiday scored just nine points and 4 out of 14 but made the biggest basket of the night.
Brooklyn led 83-82 when Brown missed a jumper with just over 20 seconds. Antetokounmpo got a rebound, the Bucks worked the ball upcourt, and Holiday went to the basket to put Milwaukee 84-83.
Milwaukee's defense moved from there as it continued its resurgent performance after the failure of Game 3.
"I think part of it is playing desperately, knowing the situation, knowing what this sport means to us and what it means," Holiday said. "And then the second part of it is the performance that we had in the first two games, it shows that's not the kind of defense we play. He was really out of character. "
After Brown had only 6 seconds left in his self-driving layup attempt, Middleton got a rebound. Middleton scored a pair of free throws with 2.1 seconds left to cap the scoring.
Kyrie Irving scored 22 and Brown scored 16 for the Nets, with no team leading more than five in the second half.
"It's a good old-fashioned playoff game," Irving said.
Tip-ins
Nets: Brooklyn was again without nine-time All-Stars James Harden (right hamstring tightness) and Jeff Greene (plantar fascia strain). Harden suffered an injury in the opening minute of Game 1. Greene hasn't played with the Boston Celtics since Game 2 of the Nets' first-round series. ... Joe Harris was 1 in 11 and 3 on 7 after averaging 16 points in the first two games.
Bucks: Brooke Lopez scored just three points but had 11 rebounds and six blocks. ... Antetokounmpo was 1 out of 8 on 3-point attempts and 4 out of 9 on free throws, and he had a 10-second violation on a free throw for the second time this post season. He is 6 out of 19 in free-throw attempts in this series. ... the Bucks were playing home games for the first time this season with fans in all seats. The crowd included the Green Bay Packers running back Aaron Jones and outside linebacker Zadarius Smith, as well as former Packers receiver Antonio Freeman. The Fischer Forum was at 50% capacity for the Bucks' first-round series.
Getting Tasty
As the game progressed in the second half, emotions were high on both sides.
PJ in the third quarter After Tucker called for fouling Durant, Tucker began complaining about the call. This caused Tucker and Durant to face each other, with officials placing a double technical call on the two players.
Long Distance Conflict
Although the Bucks won the game, their problems from 3-point range continued.
The Bucks went 8 for 27 ahead of the arc on Thursday and are 20 for 88 on 3-point attempts this series. Milwaukee scored a franchise-record 14.4 3-pointers per game during the regular season.