3 big takeaways from Milwaukee Bucks sweeping tough 3 game stretch
The Milwaukee Bucks’ big three are ready for the real thing
Throughout all of the injuries, the Bucks haven’t gotten to have their three best players all available for many games this season. Even when they are all together, it’s been all too common that one of them (usually Holiday or Middleton) has been not that great for whatever reason.
During this three-game stretch against some of the cream of the crop (that’s being a bit generous to the Bulls, but whatever), their stars showed up and led the way in all three games.
Holiday and Middleton carried the load when Antetokounmpo fouled out against the Suns, but that certainly wasn’t the only time they were needed.
Holiday has been fantastic in clutch time for the Bucks, picking up a game-winner against the Heat and scoring 33 points in the fourth quarter of the following two games combined. That is an extension of how fantastic Holiday has been offensively this season, but he’s really turned it up the last few games.
Middleton got better with each game and it culminated with a 44-point masterpiece against a Suns defense that still had Mikal Bridges and Jae Crowder, two very good wing defenders. He had a pretty inconsistent first half-plus, but I never had any reason to doubt that he’d come good eventually.
And then, even though he fouled out against the Suns, Antetokounmpo still scored 17 of his 19 points in the first half to keep things manageable when the Bucks were turning the ball over like it was going out of fashion.
There is a very small margin for error for the Bucks when they rely so heavily on their three best players, but they’ve emphatically erased that margin the last few games.
They still have plenty of tough games to finish out the season, but they’ve more than survived this awful three-game stretch.