Bucks Stock Market: Milwaukee's depth shines as the Bucks handle Houston at home
It was easy to forget the Bucks were without multiple starters on Wednesday night.
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.
The several off days the Milwaukee Bucks had after their faceoff with the Cleveland Cavaliers were good for the team; after blowing an early lead, the Bucks took charge of the game on Wednesday night and simply handled business against the Houston Rockets, winning 126-106. It was a good game for basically all of Milwaukee’s seasoned vets — we’ll get to them in the stocks. It was also a good game for disrespectful highlights. There were a few for both teams, but none as devastatingly vicious as Jordan Nwora’s step-back three followed by a taunt of Armoni Brooks, the defender who fell over. Nwora was dunked on twice after this, which does not seem coincidental.
Wes Matthews 📈
It was an emotional night for Wes Matthews, who said a heartfelt goodbye to his grandmother earlier on Wednesday. As Wes nailed his first triple of the night, he aimed his trademark bow and arrow celebration straight up, a striking homage to a woman he clearly loved deeply. Wes was subsequently able to make lots of those homages, as he made 4 of 5 threes, 6 of 7 shots overall, and added multiple impact plays defensively in what was his best game of the season by far. This was one of those special nights that happens in sports sometimes when a performance is clearly bigger than just the game in question, and it was powerful to witness.
Jrue Holiday 📈
Although Khris Middleton returned to the lineup and poured in 23 points of his own as he knocked some rust off, Jrue Holiday continued scoring like T-Pain and had another strong game. Jrue tallied a game-high 24 points, a game-high 10 assists, plus 4 rebounds and 2 steals. He was super efficient from the field and three-point range, making 10/17 shots overall and 2 of his 5 threes. Jrue having more than double the attempts from 2 that he does from 3 feels like a good formula for success; it certainly was against the Rockets.
DeMarcus Cousins 📈
Anybody who watches most Bucks games has seen Boogie’s obvious athletic limitations at this point of his career. They are clearly observable.
HOWEVER: Boogie finds ways to make a real impact even without the lift he used to have at his disposal, and he steamrolled Houston while racking up 18 points, 8 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 block, and 0 turnovers in 28 minutes of action. The Bucks won his minutes, he shot effectively (outside of his threes, which have not been falling so far this season), and overall Boogie was a net positive. He’s been that often — the Bucks have a net rating of +9 in his minutes, meaning they outscore opponents by 9 points per 100 possessions when Cousins plays. That’s a very strong number, and it speaks to Boogie finding ways to excel even without tons of athleticism.
Milwaukee is back in action quickly — the Bucks play Thursday night in Dallas when they take on the slumping Dallas Mavericks at 7:30 pm.
Loved the Wes write-up. Great work