Milwaukee Bucks: Player of the Week (Jan 29 – Feb 4)
The Milwaukee Bucks had a rough go of it in week 15. They lost two out of three games and once again failed to make up ground in the playoff picture. Three Bucks played well amid the turmoil and earned some recognition.
The Milwaukee Bucks struggled once again in week 15. In the last three weeks the Bucks have participated in 12 games. They have won just two of those games.
In week 15 the Bucks lost their first two games against the Utah Jazz and the Denver Nuggets. But they finished up the week with a seemingly rare victory, getting a win over the Phoenix Suns.
Three weeks of poor play have somehow not totally knocked Milwaukee out of playoff positioning. The Bucks are currently one game out of the eighth seed and three games back from the seventh seed.
No one wants to be the eighth seed and see LeBron James and company in round one of the playoffs. The other top teams in the East don’t seem nearly as unstoppable, however, and the Bucks could put themselves in a situation where an upset wouldn’t be unthinkable.
The players didn’t struggle as much as they did in the past few weeks. For example, over the past three games, seven Bucks attempted six or more shots per game. Only one of those guys made less than 50 percent of their attempts.
Even though the individuals picked up their games in some respects this week, the final scores in each game proved that the team still has a lot to work on. Milwaukee was unable to win games it needed to in order to help its ultimate goal, making the playoffs. The more losses that mount, the more painful losses in must-win games become for the Bucks.
Luckily for us, this is a piece that dissects individual player performances and rewards those who did it right. And there were a lot of Bucks who did some nice things that they could hang their hat on in week 15:
- John Henson averaged 2.5 blocks per game.
- Malcolm Brogdon shot 60 percent from three.
- Mirza Teletovic had the best plus/minus on the team at +9.0.
- Jabari Parker led the team in rebounding.
- Matthew Dellavedova led the team in assists.
- Giannis Antetokounmpo averaged 6.3 free throws per contest.
- And last but certainly not least, Thon Maker averaged 1.7 made threes and 1.3 blocks in less than 11 minutes per game!
Each Buck had something going right. But when the losses outnumber the wins, each Buck is also going to have their own share of struggles. That made it particularly difficult to parse out the top three players of the week.
Let’s get to the ranking and see who did what was necessary to separate themselves from the pack!