MILWAUKEE — Gary Trent Jr. scored 37 points and tied a Bucks playoff franchise record with nine 3-pointers to lead the Bucks to a 117-101 win over the Pacers in Game 3 of their first round NBA Eastern Conference playoff series Friday night at Fiserv Forum.

The Pacers lead the series 2-1 going into Game 4 a 9:30 p.m. Eastern time Sunday in Milwaukee. The Bucks win guarantees a Game 5 on Tuesday (6 p.m.) in Indianapolis.

Giannis Antetokounmpo also scored 37 points for the Bucks and had 12 rebounds and six assists. A.J. Green added 12 points and Bobby Portis Jr. had 10. Pascal Siakam led the Pacers with 28 points, forward Aaron Nesmith added 18 and point guard Tyrese Haliburton had 14 points and 10 assists.

Gary Trent Jr. burns Pacers in third quarter

The Pacers had control of the game at halftime in part because the Bucks were frigid from outside. Indiana led 57-47 at the break with the Bucks struggling to make shots in their own building, making just 4-of-23 first-half 3-point attempts and shooting 18-of-48 (37.5%) from the floor.

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But in the third quarter in particular and the second half overall the Pacers got a little slow in their rotations, especially out of double teams of Antetokounmpo, and Trent Jr. made them pay repeatedly.

Trent had 13 first-half points on 4-of-7 shooting including 2-of-4 from 3-point range — accounting for half of the Bucks’ first half 3s on his own. But he apparently decided that wasn’t nearly enough and he hit five 3s in the third quarter alone, scoring 18 points in the period. That keyed a 39-18 third quarter for the Bucks, who shot 13-of-21 from the floor and 5-of-8 from 3 for 1.56 points per possession while the Pacers went cold and hit just 6-of-19 field goals, including 1-of-9 3s for 0.73 points per possession.

Once Trent caught fire, so did everyone else. He scored six more points in the fourth quarter to finish with 37 on 11-of-16 shooting including 9-of-12 from 3-point range. The Bucks shot 6-of-10 from beyond the arc in the fourth and 11-of-18 from 3 in the half outscoring the Pacers 70-44.

Pacers get little production outside of Pascal Siakam, Aaron Nesmith

The Pacers defended well enough in the first half that it wasn’t much of a problem that almost half of their production was coming from two scorers.

Siakam and Nesmith combined for 28 points on 12-of-18 shooting with Nesmith scoring 15 and Siakam scoring 13 and both men shooting 6-of-9 from the floor. The rest of the team was 11-of-32 from the floor, but the Bucks only had 47 first-half points so that worked out OK.

But no one else really got going after that, so it was a problem once the Bucks started making shots.

Siakam finished with 28 points on 12-of-19 shooting and Nesmith scored 18 on 7-of-13 from the floor and 4-of-8 from 3. However, Haliburton was the only other scorer in double figures and he wasn’t particularly efficient. He finished with 14 points on 5-of-11 shooting including 4-of-9 from 3, but several of those buckets came once the game was decided or close to it. He did finish with 10 assists against one turnovers. Center Myles Turner and Andrew Nembhard combined for 12 points on 3-of-17 shooting.

Ben Sheppard returns to rotation

After playing a key role off the bench in last year’s playoffs but not playing at all in the first two games of this series, Ben Sheppard returned to the rotation in Friday’s game, checking in in the second quarter and getting wing minutes off the bench instead of draft classmate Jarace Walker.

Sheppard’s second quarter minutes went well as he hit a 3-pointer and was +9 in six minutes on the floor. His second half action wasn’t as fruitful as he went 1-of-4 from the floor and was -6 in his minutes.

Pacers vs Bucks playoffs scores, schedule, TV channel

(All times ET; *-if necessary)

Game 1, Sat., April 19: Pacers 117, Bucks 98

Game 2, Tues., April 22: Pacers 123, Bucks 115

Game 3, Fri., April 25: Bucks 117, Pacers 101

Game 4, Sun., April 27: at Bucks, 9:30 p.m. (TNT)

Game 5, Tues., April 29: at Pacers, 6 p.m. (NBA TV)

*-Game 6, Fri., May 2: at Bucks, TBA

*-Game 7, Sun., May 4: Pacers, TBA