After a few false starts, the Bucks finally got their first regular-season win last night, beating the Indiana Pacers 110-102. The team had been building toward a win, but minor mistakes were costing them dearly. However, in this game, they put those lessons to good use and stayed in it long enough to outlast the weary Pacers, who were down two starters (Ivica Zubac and Andrew Nembhard) and on the second night of a back-to-back. Read our full summary of the game here.
Player Grades
Ryan Rollins
31 minutes, 19 points, 2 rebounds,
4 assists, 1 turnover, 4 PF, 7/14 FG, 3/7 3P, +10
Rollins keeps building. I loved that he never took a backwards step to the trash-talking Haliburton. Rollins had a great first half, going 4/7 and 3/4 from deep. He tailed off a bit in the second half but made key plays late to seal the Bucks’ win.
Grade: C+
Tyler Herro
32 minutes, 23 points, 10 rebounds, 7 assists, 2 turnovers, 7/14 FG, 3/6 3P, +1
Back to regular programming for Herro, who started slow but built as the game went on, culminating in an 11-point third quarter (when the team desperately needed it). He seemed to make a point of rebounding and kickstarting the transition offence himself. Obviously, as long as Herro is aggressive, he’ll draw attention and open up shooters, but racking up those stats while only committing two turnovers was maybe the most impressive part. That said, Herro did space out a few times off the ball on some really basic actions; a simple flare screen for Aaron Nesmith had Herro lost.
Grade: A-
Jaime Jaquez Jr.
24 minutes, 8 points, 6 rebounds, 4/13 FG, 0/4 3P , -1
This was Jaquez’s first bad game of the year, a real come-down-to-earth performance. Nothing seemed to be working for him, and I’m not sure there’s much more to it. Jaquez wasn’t detrimental to the team or anything; it just wasn’t his night.
Grade: D
Kyle Kuzma
29 minutes, 17 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 turnovers, 6/10 FG, 4/6 3P, 0
Man, this was a funny game for Kuzma because, I’d say, 90% of his output was positive; he obviously made key threes to keep the team in it (plus hit the dagger at the end), and his shooting overall was very efficient. Plus, Kuz impacted in other areas of the game while keeping his turnovers to a minimum. However, there were still those 2-4 plays we seem to see every game from Kuzma that make you want to pull your hair out. Namely, him apparently being unable to throw a simple kick-ahead pass to a teammate streaking in for the layup. Or, better yet, when he ran into Jaime Jaquez as Jaquez tried to finish off Turner’s lob late in the game.
Grade: B+
Myles Turner
28 minutes, 6 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists, 4 blocks, 3 turnovers, 2/7 FG, 0/3 3P, +14
Without troubling the scoreboard much—which does need to change—Turner was impactful. Obviously, everyone will point to those back-to-back blocks in the fourth quarter, but he also had two key blocks in the first half. Turner was also huge on the boards, with three of his nine rebounds being offensive. I thought he played a good game that the stat sheet won’t fully reflect. Don’t get me wrong, Turner still had a few iffy plays, and I’d like him to let it fly more than he has been, but it was still a really solid outing for the big man.
Grade: B
Kel’el Ware
19 minutes, 16 points, 14 rebounds, 3 turnovers, 7/13 FG, 0/4 3P, -5
First off, what a funny stat line for Ware: shot 13 times in just 19 minutes, LOL. Jokes aside, another great game for the big man, who, like Turner, made a major impact as a rebounder (five of his 14 rebounds on the offensive variety). Overall, he’s just looked much more engaged in the last two games, which has been great to see. I also want to mention that Ware is giving the Bucks a legit vertical spacer like they haven’t had in a few years (maybe Giannis, but even he wasn’t really a consistent lob threat, per se). Like, you can legit throw it up anywhere near the rim, and Ware will cram that sucker in. Oh, and he shoots threes. Just. Needs. To. Put. It. All. Together.
Grade: B
Kasparas Jakucionis
21 minutes, 7 points, 4 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 turnovers, 2/4 FG, 1/3 3P, -1
I sound like a broken record, but Jakucionis just comes in and plays solid on both ends. KJ has got great chemistry with Kel’el Ware in particular, and his ability to pass with both hands opens up so many angles. I mean, that left-handed wraparound pass to Ware was sick (see Bonus Bucks Bits).
Grade: B
Brayden Burries
16 minutes, 4 points, 2/5 FG, 0/2 3P, +6
Burries couldn’t find much offensive rhythm, but I thought he had some great defensive possessions guarding Haliburton in the pick-and-roll. More specifically, Haliburton likes to put his man “in jail” on pick-and-rolls, meaning he comes off the screen and then slows down to keep his man on his back (“in jail”). What Burries did well was pushing back, changing angles, etc., so Haliburton couldn’t get comfortable.
Grade: C
AJ Green
20 minutes, 3 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists, 1/6 FG, 1/6 3P, +5
This wasn’t Green’s night from a shooting perspective, but he made some nice playmaking reads, most notably his dime to Ament in open court for the dunk. Green let the numbers advantage tell him who was open, then zipped it inside to the rookie.
Grade: C-
Nate Ament
13 minutes, 7 points, 3 rebounds, 1 PF, 3/8 FG, 1/2 3P, +12
It was a rough first stint for Ament—who looked frazzled and rushed—and when Jenkins went to Ousmane Dieng for what would have been Ament’s second-quarter minutes, I wasn’t sure he’d get back on. However, Jenkins did go back to Ament in the second half and he looked considerably more comfortable, making better reads and running the floor hard; you could almost see the weight come off his shoulders as that first field goal went down. Crucially, Ament got only one foul and had some really solid possessions guarding Pascal Siakam. As I’ve said previously, Ament has all the tools to be a solid wing defender; he just needs to figure out how to use them.
Grade: C+
Taylor Jenkins
Jenkins finally got the team to play closer to a four-quarter effort last night, and it resulted in a great win. I thought the decision to close with Turner was smart, even though his offensive contributions were limited, because they needed a sturdier presence inside. Additionally, I liked Jenkins’ choice to close with a three-guard front of Herro, Rollins, and Jakucionis, which gave them more ball-handling to attack the pressing Pacers defence. Finally, he has clearly been working behind the scenes to get his guys to limit turnovers, and it paid off against Indiana, with the team throwing it away only 11 times—we’ll see if that continues. Great game.
Grade: B+
Limited minutes: Ousmane Dieng
DNP-CD: Caris LeVert, Bogoljub Markovic, Jericho Sims, Gary Trent Jr.
Inactive: Kam Jones, Cormac Ryan, Pete Nance
What We Learnt
Jenkins has talked a lot about defensive intensity—which has become a bit of a buzz term, frankly—but the fourth quarter showed exactly what he wanted. The way the Bucks guarded the ball, talked, and helped the helper was great to see. Now that they know what it looks like, hopefully they can recreate that moving forward.
Bonus Bucks Bits
- “We’ve been close,” Jenkins said. “Great execution down the stretch—timely shots, timely blocks, timely rebounds… We talked about owning the pace and owning the paint. I thought we did that in spurts in the first half, and did it way more in the second half. Still more to clean up, but really proud of the group.”
- Check out the postgame celebration:
- Once again, the Bucks won the paint battle (50-48); they also won bench points (37-32).
- Milwaukee had seven offensive rebounds in the fourth quarter.
- It was great to see Nate and Brayden get a long stretch on the court from the middle of the third to the middle of the fourth. Both stayed in the game and contributed to the decisive 17-4 run from the late third to the early fourth.
- Minor note on Nate Ament: less is more at this stage of his career. Not sure whether it was because he wanted to get his first basket out of the way, but he was very focused on getting his own in the first half. In the second half, everything flowed more easily because, by and large, Ament let the game come to him.
- As Terrapin Revisited noted in the Rapid Recap comments, Fiserv did look pretty empty. I hope that was mostly because the Brewers were playing.
- The aforementioned wraparound pass from Jakucionis:
Up Next
The Bucks are back at home on Wednesday to host the Houston Rockets. Watch at 7:00 p.m. CDT on MY24.
