Taylor Jenkins after Bucks fall to Bulls: far from 48 minutes, home opener ahead

MILWAUKEE — Oct. 14, 2026 — The Milwaukee Bucks took a 125-104 preseason loss to the Chicago Bulls at Fiserv Forum, and Taylor Jenkins did not dress it up afterward. Chicago finished with 35 assists and 22 fast-break points to Milwaukee’s 21 and 6. The Bucks turned it over 30 times. Jenkins kept coming back to the same frame: full-game habits, not one half.

“We’re far from putting 48 minutes together,” Jenkins said after the game. “I just told the guys got to continue to stay the course. We’ve got more ahead of us, that we’ve got more in us too, and we just got to find that in the next couple of days because it’s a journey. It’s a 48-minute game. We can’t let the first quarter, first half just dictate kind of our mood. We got to respond.”

Transition defense and the ‘cookie jar’

Jenkins thought Milwaukee handled Chicago’s transition early, then lost the string for the rest of the first half. He estimated the Bulls piled up about 15 points in transition in those stretches — the official box finished at 22 fast-break points — and tied the damage to late get-backs and fouling downhill.

“I thought we did a good job early in the game handling their transition and then it kind of just got away from us the rest of the first half,” he said. “They just had enough spurts there with transition. Just like some crucial breakdowns, not getting back. We had numbers, but then they found the cracks. We didn’t shift like we needed to. They made us pay.”

Physical play cut both ways. Jenkins said both teams fouled, and Milwaukee’s habit of reaching — “putting our hand in the cookie jar” — was a personnel focus that put the Bucks in a hole. A better third-quarter push still arrived too late against a Bulls group that kept humming.

“We’re trying to play the right way and we just don’t get the result,” Jenkins said. “We can’t let that impact our defense. And then even when they scored, we didn’t really have pop on offense. We weren’t getting the ball at the floor as quick as we needed to.”

Home opener as a city celebration

Looking ahead to next Friday’s home opener, Jenkins framed the night as bigger than a tip-off. He called it a special night for the organization and for himself being back in Milwaukee, then widened the lens to the whole city.

“Anytime it’s a Bucks game, it’s a celebration of our city. It’s a celebration of our people. It’s a celebration of our culture, citywide, statewide,” Jenkins said. “There’s a lot of excitement to what we’re building here. It’s going to take time. But we’ve got an urgent approach every single day.”

He wants fans in the building learning the new faces — and learning him, too — while the group builds competitive spirit “not just for our team, but for our city.” Friday, he said, is going to be awesome.

Kam Jones led Milwaukee with 23 points off the bench on 9-of-14 shooting. Brayden Burries started and scored 19 with five assists and four steals; Kasparas Jakučionis added 18 points and six assists. The scoreboard said otherwise, but Jenkins’ board for the next couple of days is clear: put 48 minutes together, clean up the get-backs, and carry that urgency into the home opener.