Milwaukee Bucks: Takeaways from 118-110 win over Philadelphia 76ers
We’ll buy what he’s Zelling
After a few rather nondescript performances during the Bucks’ losing streak, Tyler Zeller was the best big man for the team on Sunday night by a wide margin.
Coming off the bench as he has since coming to Milwaukee just over a month ago, Zeller posted 11 points on 5-of-8 shooting from the field, five rebounds, one steal and a block each and was a +22 in exactly 20 minutes of action.
On the offensive end, Zeller’s rim running and overall off ball movement was incredibly impactful as he got easy scoring opportunities at the basket. Same goes for Zeller’s chemistry with Giannis Antetokounmpo, considering they connected on a few passes for successful scores on Zeller’s part when the Bucks were ramping up their big run throughout the third quarter.
Defensively, Zeller was low-key disruptive as his defense on 76ers’ big man Joel Embiid was palpable and helped slow down the one-time All-Star’s rolling performance as the game wore on.
Of course, Zeller’s night was unfortunately cut short after landing nastily after getting undercut by Embiid while slamming home a breakaway two hand slam, giving Bucks fans Andrew Bogut flashbacks. Fortunately, Zeller was up and moving moments later and was able to knock down a flagrant free throw before heading into the locker room at the 6:11 mark of the fourth quarter.
After the game, Zeller was asked about how he was feeling following his fall as described by Matt Velazquez of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Tyler Zeller patted his right hip after going down on that scary foul by Joel Embiid. I asked him if it was, in fact, his hip that was bothering him. He said it was basically everything on the right side of his body. Still hurting, but hopeful he’ll be OK going forward.
— Matt Velazquez (@Matt_Velazquez) March 5, 2018
We’ll see how the incident affects Zeller’s availability moving forward, but it’s already a sigh of relief, considering how awful it looked in real time and Zeller’s instant reaction after his fall.
Next: Bucks: How will franchise history view Khris Middleton?
The Bucks will have a quick turnaround to build on last night’s win as they face the Indiana Pacers Monday night at 6 PM central time in Bankers Life Fieldhouse.