MILWAUKEE — The Golden State Warriors walked slowly off the Bradley Center floor, exchanging handshakes with the victorious Milwaukee Bucks on the way back to their locker room.
They’re not used to losing.
The Warriors’ NBA-record start ended after 24 wins when they lost to the Bucks 108-95 on Saturday night.
“We didn’t have it tonight,” interim coach Luke Walton said. “That’s why it is so hard to do what these guys have done so far. It caught up to us.”
Golden State fell to 24-1. Its 28-game winning streak, counting the final four games of last season, came to a halt. The NBA’s longest winning streak was 33 by the Los Angeles Lakers in 1971-72 — and it was also snapped by Milwaukee.
“Well, we knew the streak had to end at some point,” the Warriors posted on their Twitter account.
It was the way they lost that was a little surprising. This was no squeaker at the buzzer, but a Bucks runaway at the end.
Greg Monroe scored 28 points for the Bucks, who got the all-around effort needed to beat the defending NBA champions.
“When you talk about the streak, what’s bigger than the streak is they’re the world champs,” coach Jason Kidd said. “And so, for us, we didn’t talk about the streak, it was about playing the world champs.”
It also helped that the Warriors, perhaps fighting fatigue after needing two overtimes to win at Boston on Friday, were cold from 3-point range. They usually make 13 a night, but were just 6 of 26 from behind the arc playing on the final game of a seven-game road trip.
Stephen Curry had 28 points on 10-of-21 shooting from the field, including 2 of 8 from 3-point territory.
Not good enough to get past the Bucks, who led by double digits for much of the night before the Warriors cut it to a point a couple times.
In each instance, there was a sense of inevitability that Golden State somehow would go on one of its breakneck-speed runs to put away another opponent.
But the Bucks had an answer each time.
“We never wavered,” Monroe said.
He was 11 of 16, including a three-point play with 2:51 left for a 12-point lead.
Michael Carter-Williams’ strong drive down the lane and dunk with 42 seconds left put an exclamation point on Milwaukee’s night.
“We showed some spurts to get back into the game. We got some stops,” Curry said. “But for 48 minutes, I don’t think anybody can say we played as hard as they did.”
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