Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bucks bigs swat Hornets in Charlotte

The Milwaukee Bucks welcomed back superstar forward Giannis Antetokounmpo from his calf straight and immediately won consecutive games for the first time since October. The most recent win came on Monday as Milwaukee notched a 123-113 victory over the Charlotte Hornets on the road. The win made history for Bucks coach Doc Rivers, who moved to sixth on the coaching wins list.

Congratulations to Doc Rivers on moving into sixth on the NBA’s all-time coaching wins list. pic.twitter.com/iIXPMFNCU1
— Milwaukee Bucks (@Bucks) December 30, 2025

Giannis is still on a 25 minute restriction but managed to post 24 points, seven assists, four rebounds, and a steal while shooting 11/16 from the field. Despite the impressive stat totals, Giannis wasn’t the only one of his fellow frontcourt Bucks players to have a good outing.

Bucks Bigs Crush Hornets

Giannis stuffed the stat sheet but actually wasn’t Milwaukee’s leading scorer: Bobby Portis paced Milwaukee with 25 points in 23 minutes off the bench. Portis shot 8/12 from the field and 5/7 from three-point range plus contributed two rebounds and an assist.

Bucks center Myles Turner had one of his best games since signing in Milwaukee as well, posting 23 points, six rebounds, four blocks and one assist in 30 minutes. It should be no surprise the Bucks bigs had opportunity to succeed given the Hornets entered the game without center Ryan Kalkbrenner and lost Miles Bridges to injury in the first quarter, but Milwaukee wont apologize for injury luck given the Bucks record without Giannis active this season.

Getting more strong production like this from Giannis, Turner, and Portis will place the Bucks in a much stronger position to pull itself back into the playoff picture.

Steady Point Guard Production

Ryan Rollins and Kevin Porter Jr. have both given the Bucks some of the team’s best individual performances of this season. Milwaukee is always glad to see one of them go off as the team deals with the fallout of waiving and stretching Damian Lillard, but the team notched a win without either of them reaching 20 points against the Hornets.

Porter Jr. did stuff the stat sheet with 15 points, 11 assists, five rebounds, two steals and a block, but shot just 13 times and only turned the ball over once despite logging 37 minutes. This was the kind of responsible, somewhat scaled-down performance that KPJ needs to showcase to prove he’s more than a ball-dominant player who needs star levels of touches.

Rollins struggled to finish at the rim all game against Charlotte and shot just 3/10 on his way to 13 points, three rebounds, four assists, and two steals in the win. Milwaukee will need more production in most games from its young guards, but proving its possible to win without one of them posting a 20-10 double-double is nice in its own right.

Green’s Shooting Slump Continues

Since returning to the lineup from a shoulder injury on December 18, Bucks forward A.J. Green has struggled to consistently hit his threes. Green, who had been one of the NBA’s best shooters, was at 31.4% across his last five games ahead of the Hornets match-up and made just one of his five attempted threes vs the Hornets.

Milwaukee needs Green to get back to his hot shooting ways in a hurry, but they survived on Monday. Milwaukee actually was a game-high +16 in Green’s minutes, and he did add three rebounds, two assists, and a steal. A few more threes would make for even better of a line though.

All in all this was a big Bucks win given Milwaukee’s placement of 11th in the Eastern Conference — they’re all must-win games at this point to some degree. The Bucks next game is their final one of 2025, when Milwaukee hosts the Washington Wizards on December 31.