3 takeaways from Milwaukee Bucks’ outright ugly loss to Atlanta Hawks

Khris Middleton’s best performance of the season went down in vein due to another turnover-heavy game

With Antetokounmpo struggling and Holiday not around, Khris Middleton took it upon himself to take on more responsibility offensively for the Milwaukee Bucks.

After a rough start to the game, Middleton quickly found his footing and had arguably his best shooting night of the season. The forward scored a season-high 34 points in this loss, putting together an efficient night by going 11-of-22 from the floor, including 4-of-9 from behind the arc. Despite the loss, this was exactly the individual performance that he needed following an outright awful 3-of-12 shooting outing against the Raptors on Saturday. Middleton has been fighting with a shooting slump lately, but hopefully his efforts on Monday can help him put that behind him for good moving forward.

In addition to his shooting slump, another trend that has been all too common for Middleton lately has been his turnovers. Whether it be sloppy passes, questionable decisions, or whatever else, he has been incredibly careless with the basketball over these past few games, which continued last night as he tallied a horrific eight turnovers. These turnovers from Middleton, along with the five from Antetokounmpo, certainly may have cost the Bucks the game as they both just could not get a handle on it all night.

Part of Middleton’s recent turnover frenzy is due to the new ball-handling responsibility he must embrace with Holiday sidelined. It can be difficult to take on those duties, but eight turnovers are just downright unacceptable. Middleton has found himself in a nice groove over these past few games, but it will not matter if he keeps turning the ball over so often. While it is great to see him return to form with his scoring, the next step must be cutting back on turnovers.

Middleton will aim to do just that as the Milwaukee Bucks take on the Grizzlies this Wednesday. Be sure to catch the action at 7:00 p.m. CST on Bally Sports Wisconsin.