Bucks Stock Market: Embarrassing performance against Miami

A hobbled Heat team was evidently too much for Milwaukee to handle.

The Bucks Stock Market is a fictitious market run by the GSPN crew that tracks player stock “movement” following the conclusion of every game. Here’s the spreadsheet logging the game-by-game results.

Jimmy Butler did not play. Bam Adebayo did not play. The Bucks lost. Yes, it finally happened: the Milwaukee Bucks lost a game where all three of Giannis Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton, and Jrue Holiday are playing. Let’s be honest, Milwaukee should win this game. They have more talent and the best three players between either active roster, but they did not come ready to play. It wasn’t just the missed shots, it was the methods to which they were getting to their spots. No one on the team had any zip in their motions and they just looked lost. Let’s talk movements.

Jrue Holiday📈

Let’s start with the good. Jrue Holiday was the one bright spot in an otherwise eclipsed game for Milwaukee. He seemed to be the only member of the Bucks who was capable of playing competent NBA basketball for extended periods of time against Miami. Pouring in 27 points on 70.6% shooting from the field is elite, especially for someone who was also completely locked in on the defensive end. Even though Holiday only finished with four assists, I thought he saw the floor extremely well and unfortunately had teammates who couldn't throw a stone in an ocean tonight.

Giannis Antetokounmpo📉

15 points from Giannis tonight matches his season-low for points in a game where he plays over 30 minutes, tying November 10th’s double-digit win over the Knicks. It was an abysmal performance from the freshly-minted 27-year old. First off, he wasn’t aggressive. Antetokounmpo only took 13 shots, which is a far greater concern for me than the fact that he only made four of them. This is a Miami team that did not have two of their premier defenders in Butler and Adebayo, yet Giannis still wasn’t finding his shots. Less than six months ago in the postseason, Giannis picked apart this Miami defensive scheme with precision passing out of doubles, but had an assist-to-turnover ratio of 1.0 tonight. It feels wrong to be this critical of the reigning Finals MVP for one poor performance, but this is the standard that Antetokounmpo has set for himself.

Khris Middleton📉

Here’s a tip for all basketball fans. When perusing box scores, do not look at traditional triple-double stats of points, rebounds, and assists and call it a day. If you did that for Khris, you’d see that he had 20 points, 6 rebounds, and 4 assists and think its good when in fact, it was actually not good! Usually I rave about Middleton’s playmaking abilities, but against the Heat, Khris had six turnovers and had as much control over the offense as a 12-year old does taking their family member’s car on a joyride. The Bucks desperately needed a calm and collected Khris Middleton to show up, but his absence was part of their downfall.

Grayson Allen📉

YIKES. In a game where the Bucks painfully needed dynamic shooting, getting benched as one of the team’s most dynamic shooters is almost impressive. Budenholzer went with Wesley Matthews, who was signed off his couch five days ago, over Grayson down the stretch because Matthews was capable of providing physical defense while also giving off the impression of floor spacing, both aspects of the game that Allen wasn’t excelling in tonight.

Pat Connaughton📉

This one feels like it would be solely due to his shooting (2-8 from the floor, 1-5 from three), but Pat also made defensive errors that led to scorching-hot shooters such as Caleb Martin and Max Struss continually get decent looks and bury the Bucks. It wasn’t the worst game from Planet Pat, but the down stock is still warranted.

The Milwaukee Bucks will look to rebound from this atrocious performance on Friday, December 10th, against the Houston Rockets, who (somehow) currently have the league’s longest winning streak at seven games.