Reigning NBA Rookie of the Year Michael Carter-Williams made his first appearance in a Milwaukee Bucks uniform on Wednesday night and the centerpiece of Milwaukee’s trade deadline had the Bucks offense humming immediately, much to the pleasure of his head coach Jason Kidd.
MCW made his Milwaukee debut, perhaps fittingly, against his former team the Philadelphia 76ers, and it didn’t take long for the young point man to show off what the Sixers lost and the Bucks gained at the deadline.
The sophomore stud played just 17 and-a-half minutes in his return from a nagging toe injury. But in his brief action Carter-Williams put his ability to make and create plays on full display as he tallied seven points, dished out eight assists and grabbed two steals to help Milwaukee to a decisive 104-88 victory that snapped a two-game slide. Afterward, Coach Kidd noted the many traits the second-year point guard brought to the table for the Bucks.
“We weren’t going to play him over 20 (minutes),” Jason said. “He felt great. Being 23 years old, he was leading his guys, talking to them throughout the game. All good stuff.”
The ability of Carter-Williams to distribute the ball effectively caught on with his teammates, as the ball was moving to the tune of 32 assists dished out by Milwaukee players, with at least two coming from each player who touched the court. As a result of that ball movement, the Bucks offense clicked at a high-level and as a unit they shot 53.7 percent.
John Henson and Khris Middleton led the way for the Bucks on the scoreboard. Henson was the game’s high-scorer with 21 points and also grabbed nine rebounds, while Middleton pitched in 19 points on an efficient 9-of-12 shooting. All-told six Milwaukee players scored nine or more points in the win.
With O.J. Mayo out of commission nursing a sore right hamstring, Jerryd Bayless picked up the slack and turned in some great production off the bench. Bayless scored 13 points and took the most shots, 14, on Wednesday night in 30 minutes. Tyler Ennis, who joined the Bucks at the trade deadline, added nine points.
Despite his limited time preparation time and no time in games with the Bucks prior to Wednesday’s contest, it was apparent all night that Carter-Williams had instant chemistry on the floor with his new teammates.
Milwaukee dominated the game from the outset, as led by the efforts of Carter-Williams, they scored 14 of the game’s first 17 points to build a double-digit advantage less than five minutes in. MCW got his first assist as a member of the Bucks on his first possession in the uniform, when he found Ersan Ilyasova on a second chance opportunity for a mid-range jumper that gave Milwaukee a lead they held for the duration of the game.
Carter-Williams got the favor returned moments later when Giannis Antetokounmpo found his new teammate with a dish that MCW dunked. It was the first of two dunks for the new Buck in the first five minutes of the game. He sandwiched them around a nifty turnaround floater on the baseline. Each of those last two buckets were set up by steals from Carter-Williams.
The point guard also had an assist to Middleton during Milwaukee’s 14-3 game-opening run and was responsible for 10 of those 14 early Bucks points with six points and two assists before he checked out of the game. Thanks to that early start, Milwaukee built a 29-12 lead after one, and from there the Sixers never really had a chance.
“I thought he got off to a good start, getting the guys in the offense, getting some easy baskets for his teammates and for himself,” Kidd said.
The Bucks pushed the lead past 20 early in the second and by the time Carter-Williams returned to the floor with just under five minutes left in the half, the Bucks advantage was 25. MCW continued to push the tempo to close the half and tallied four more assists in the second, including a picture-perfect lob to Bayless on a back cut for an alley-oop jam.
“Honestly, I didn’t know he could get up like that,” Carter-Williams said. “He told me to look for the lob and I saw JaKarr (Sampson) had his head turned. I threw it over the top and he made a great catch and a great finish.”
He went on to dish out back-to-back dimes to Zaza Pachulia, then found Ersan Ilyasova for a trey that pushed the Bucks lead to 29 with under a minute left in the half. At the break, Milwaukee held a 61-32 lead. In addition to his deft dishing, the former Sixer had just one turnover all game, leaving J-Kidd happy to see that nothing was forced.
“I didn’t think he forced anything. I think he let the game come to him,” Jason said.
Though the game was already out of hand, Coach Kidd gave Carter-Williams a little more run early in the third. Early in the frame he dished to Middleton for a mid-range jumper and a few minutes later, with the Sixers threatening to cut the Bucks lead under 20, he again found Middleton, this time open in the corner for three to push the lead back to 25. He exited the game shortly thereafter and remained on the sidelines in the fourth as the Bucks bench weathered a late storm from the 76ers to pull within 14, and Milwaukee closed out a dominant win.
Afterward, Coach Kidd admitted that while securing the win is always the primary goal of he and his team, a close second to that objective on Wednesday was to get MCW some run with his new teammates after that toe injury had cost him some time since his arrival. Jason noted that while Carter-Williams still has a lot to learn about the Bucks playbook, he and the coaching staff have intentionally brought him along slowly and been pleased with the results thus far.
“We’re trying to keep it simple for him right now. He’s doing a great job with the small package
[of plays] we’ve given him,” Jason said. “We all felt that he is a guy that can find open guys and he did that tonight. Hopefully we can build on that.”NEXT UP
Milwaukee (32-25) begins a four-game Western road trip on Friday night. The trip, which will also take the Bucks to Utah, Denver and Jason’s hometown of Oakland will begin in Los Angeles where they take on the Lakers (15-41).
Despite owning one of the worst records in the league, LA is suddenly on a bit of an uptick, having won two straight games after stopping a seven-game losing skid. Milwaukee’s last matchup with the Lakers, required overtime and the Bucks got 12 points from the since departed Brandon Knight during the extra five minutes to close out a 113-105 win at the BMO Harris Bradley Center on February 4th.
Tip off of the rematch at the Staples Center is scheduled for 9:30 p.m. CT. and the game can be seen on FS-Wisconsin.
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