The Milwaukee Bucks began their 2021 Summer League campaign with an 81-78 win over the Los Angeles Clippers.
The Bucks led by as many as 18 in the game, but things looked ugly late in the third quarter and the Clippers actually took the lead late in the fourth, but the young Bucks took the lead back and finished it off.
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Things looked very rough at both ends — as should be expected in an environment where guys only have a few days to prepare. Yet, there were certainly some encouraging things for the young Bucks to take from this game.
The Bucks’ three key roster players were their best players as Jordan Nwora, Mamadi Diakite, and the recently drafted Sandro Mamukelashvili each showed some impressive flashes in their respective Summer League debuts.
No one should expect these three to get real rotation minutes in the regular season, so these in game reps are vitally important for them ahead of the NBA and G League seasons. The trio did the majority of the work offensively, and the non-roster Bucks didn’t really show much (aside from some very active play from Paul Eboua in the first half), but that’s the best outcome.
Sandro Mamukelashvili showed some all around flashes for the Milwaukee Bucks
In Sandro Mamukelashvili’s first professional game, he did a little bit of everything, as was advertised. He finished with a double-double, going for 11 points, 12 rebounds, four assists, one steal, and one block. He only shot 3-for-8 from the field but 5-for-6 from the free throw line.
Six of the rookie’s boards were on the offensive glass, he did some nice things crashing the glass and keeping possessions alive for a Bucks team that really struggled to shoot the ball (sound familiar?)
As we’d heard, Mamukelashvili can really pass the ball. He had one in particular where he threw a very pretty skip pass to Nwora for a corner triple.
Nwora from downtown!! pic.twitter.com/5DtXNL1YJ5
— Milwaukee Bucks (@Bucks) August 10, 2021
Defensively he wasn’t anything spectacular, but he wasn’t a liability either, which is a win for Mamukelashvili after the concerns surrounding his defense in the pre-draft process. He’s on a two-way contract, so he’ll be able to refine these all around flashes in the G League, but it was an impressive start for the 54th overall pick in the 2021 Draft.