Once again, Milwaukee Bucks traded wins and losses. They head into the New Year at a .500 record that should be better. There were many losses in December that could be turned into wins. This weekend featured a bad loss by Bucks in Minnesota and Milwaukee continuing their recent ownership of the Chicago Bulls including big games from the dynamic duo – Giannis Antetokounmpo and Jabari Parker. Many will bemoan the Washington loss but going 2-2 on a four-game road trip is always a good thing.

Bucks 116 Bulls 96
Player of the Game (Bucks): Giannis Antetokounmpo – What a game for Giannis. We’ve seen a lot of great games for Bucks guard, but this weekend’s affair might be one of his best. Antetokounmpo’s stat line was 35 points, nine rebounds, seven assists and seven blocks. That’s an absurd stat line. Hakeem Olajuwon is the last player to have a quadruple-double, and I’m convinced that Antetokounmpo is going to do it at some point. He’s that good.

Positive: Malcolm & Moose – So many crazy things happened in this game for Milwaukee. Jabari Parker causally dropped 27 points, and Malcolm Brogdon had a triple-double yet Giannis still had the biggest day. Brogdon made his case as to why he should be starting over Matthew Dellavedova with 15-12-10. Along with Brogdon, Greg Monroe’s minutes skyrocketed to 34 and it paid off with 15 points and 12 rebounds. Monroe is relishing his role off the bench, and the relationship he has with the Bucks guard is becoming a special one.

T’Wolves 116 Bucks 99
Negative: Bucks slept walk in Twin Cities – We’re going to skip through the player of the game. Simply put, Bucks didn’t play that well. All players were negative for plus/minus. One of their worst efforts of the year. After a big win against Detroit, Milwaukee let down hard against Timberwolves. The young T-Pups overwhelmed Wisconsin with their three-point shooting early on. The fact Shabazz Mohammed had a random 20 point game is not ideal and Karl-Anthony Towns did his thing with a huge double-double. Bucks match up fine with this team, but they lacked any sort of energy.

Next up: Bucks have quite the week with four games in the next six days starting tonight against Oklahoma City and Russell Westbrook at home. It should be a great matchup with two of the best in basketball. Bucks have their final back-to-back playing Knicks on both Thursday and Friday night then have their fourth game against Washington in a month. Wizards game might loom the largest if we’re already starting to think about playoff tiebreakers.

Charlie.