{"id":874046,"date":"2026-11-02T08:59:20","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T08:59:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/874046\/"},"modified":"2026-11-02T08:59:20","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T08:59:20","slug":"player-grades-for-brayden-burries-kelel-ware-in-bucks-loss-vs-cavaliers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/874046\/","title":{"rendered":"Player Grades for Brayden Burries, Kel\u2019el Ware in Bucks\u2019 loss vs. Cavaliers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Milwaukee Bucks lost badly, 136-11, to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Halloween. For three of four quarters, the Bucks played decently, but losing the second by [checks notes] 27 points cooked their goose. Milwaukee just couldn\u2019t get shots to fall, and although Cleveland\u2019s defence was solid, I thought the Bucks got decent looks. Still, there were certainly positives to take out of the game, as I\u2019ll get to. Read our full summary of the game here<\/a> and catch a six-minute audio recap on the Bucks+ podcast, Bucks In Six Minutes<\/a>, below.<\/p>\n

25 minutes, 9 points, 3 rebounds, 7 assists, 0 turnovers, 4\/11 FG, 1\/5 3P, +4<\/p>\n

Rollins\u2019 game looks worse on the stat sheet than it truly was. Yeah, he\u2019s still struggling to find his own offence, but he did a solid job of distributing the ball without turning it over. It\u2019s also not as if Rollins was shot-chucking. As I alluded to in Kasparas Jakucionis\u2019 section, the Cavs can be really tough to figure out in terms of scoring when you\u2019re being funnelled into two velociraptors (edit: I\u2019ve been informed velociraptors are small; who knew!?) inside. In short: it certainly wasn\u2019t a good game by Rollins, but it also wasn\u2019t as bad as some others he\u2019s played this season.<\/p>\n

27 minutes, 15 points, 3 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 turnovers, 5\/18 FG, 4\/11 3P, -19<\/p>\n

Herro\u2019s first stinker of the season. I thought he got some solid looks in the first half and just missed them, but in the second half, it felt like Cleveland was much more in control of his shot quality. It got to the point where Herro was trying to foul-bait to get something going. I also wasn\u2019t in love with his body language.<\/p>\n

23 minutes, 8 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assists, 3\/8 FG, 1\/2 3P , -15<\/p>\n

Weird game for Jaquez. I thought he was solid as a defender on Harden and did his best when he had to match up with Mobley, but like a few others, he struggled to find ways to score because of Cleveland\u2019s size.<\/p>\n

23 minutes, 14 points, 3 rebounds, 3 assists, 6\/12 FG, 2\/7 3P, -16<\/p>\n

Kuzme was excellent in the third quarter, scoring 12 of his 14 points and keeping the Cavs\u2019 lead from getting too large. Over the whole game, I appreciated the effort Kuz showed defensively as one of the few wings who could at least try to match Mobley physically, but ultimately that made little difference.<\/p>\n

23 minutes, 10 points, 7 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 blocks, 1 steal, 0 turnovers, 4\/10 FG, 1\/4 3P, -11<\/p>\n

Honestly, my analysis of Turner\u2019s game last night is similar to what I thought of the Rockets game: on balance, he was pretty solid, but his shooting struggles continue. I will say that, whether it is age or a blatant athleticism deficit, Turner just cannot score over athletic centres with any regularity anymore (even when he catches it with an advantage). Had a play where he set a good screen and caught it with a window to the rim, but when Evan Mobley rotated over, his only hope was to catapult himself into Mobley and hope for a call; he did not get the call, and promptly flung the ball onto the top of the backboard.<\/p>\n

24 minutes, 19 points, 10 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 blocks, 1 steal, 4 turnovers, 6\/16 FG, 3\/8 3P, 4\/5 FT, -14<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t love Ware\u2019s game, to be honest. 13 of his 19 points came in garbage time, and he should be doing that against third units. The trend of him failing to match it with these upper-echelon bigs is somewhat concerning. Ware was just no match on either end for the Mobley-Allen combo, and if he is to be Milwaukee\u2019s centre of the future, that needs to change.<\/p>\n

21 minutes, 5 points, 3 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 turnovers, 2\/7 FG, 1\/4 3P, -18<\/p>\n

After a run of good games, this was a come-down-to-earth one for Jakucionis. He did his best to knife into the lane, but the two rangy seven-footers definitely gave him trouble.<\/p>\n

20 minutes, 14 points, 3 rebounds, 1 steal, 4\/7 FG, 1\/4 3P, 5\/6 FT, -19<\/p>\n

Obviously, the headline from Burries\u2019 game was that insane dunk, but overall, I loved how he made stuff happen in transition. Burries really has some heft, and he knows how to use it. Also had some solid possessions guarding Donovan Mitchell, I must say.<\/p>\n

20 minutes, 0 points, 3 rebounds, 2 assists, 0\/1 FG, 0\/1 3P, -14<\/p>\n

In games where none of Milwaukee\u2019s guards can get paint touches, Green\u2019s productivity will generally dip. He\u2019s a play finisher, not a creator.<\/p>\n

19 minutes, 14 points, 2 assists, 1 turnover, 4 PF, 6\/8 FG, 2\/3 3P, -11<\/p>\n

Ament\u2019s first efficient shooting night. He\u2019s looking more and more comfortable with each game, especially finishing around the rim and slowing down on his three-point shots. Loved the craft he showed on the break with that Euro-step around the defender for the dunk; I\u2019d love to see more of that moving forward.<\/p>\n

Deciphering whether Jenkins \u201ccoached well\u201d in these types of games is a task I find difficult for a range of reasons. First, the clear experience and talent gap between the Bucks and the NBA\u2019s top teams; second, the fact that Milwaukee\u2019s first priority appears to be development, then winning (which I think most fans would agree with). At the very least, we can see that Jenkins has instilled a culture where the players will keep fighting no matter how much they\u2019re down by; that\u2019s been shown across the last two blowouts. That said, maybe something needs to change in the game plan, rotations, etc., to prevent these second-quarter fadeouts we have seen for two straight games now (they lost the second quarter 34-14 against the Rockets). We know this is when the likes of Ware, Burries, and Ament will be getting their time, so understandably there would be somewhat of a drop-off, but maybe Jenkins needs to get one of the vets out early so they can come back and anchor these units at the start of the second. It\u2019s a trend I\u2019m monitoring.<\/p>\n

Limited minutes: Ousmane Dieng, Gary Trent Jr.<\/p>\n

DNP-CD: Jericho Sims, Bogoljub Markovic, Caris LeVert,<\/p>\n

Inactive: Kam Jones, Cormac Ryan, Pete Nance<\/p>\n

The team might have a second-quarter problem and, as I (and Jenkins) alluded to, changes in rotation and possibly even game plan might be needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur guys played great in the first quarter, but the second quarter got away from us,\u201d Jenkins said. \u201cWe missed open threes, we missed layups\u2026 and that had an impact on our defence. We fought in the second half, but the hole we dug ourselves in was a little too deep. So, [we will] go back and watch the film to see how we can sustain better over 48 minutes.\u201dThe Bucks shot 7\/28 (25.0%) to the Cavs\u2019 18\/22 (81.8%) in the second quarter. To their credit, Milwaukee did a great job winning the possession battle\u2014largely by grabbing eight offensive rebounds\u2014but just couldn\u2019t get anything to go. As for Cleveland, 15 of their 18 makes were assisted, and as I mentioned in the Rapid Recap, they closed the period on a 21-3 run. Insane.The Bucks lost the paint battle 60-46; they did win bench points 55-51, however.Just a stray thought, and I don\u2019t want this to come across the wrong way after just six games, but if I were Horst, I\u2019d be listening (listening) to trade offers for Kel\u2019el Ware at the deadline. His continued underperformance in these measuring-stick games concerns me. And to be clear, I\u2019d also be content with keeping Ware, but if another team believes more in his upside and makes an enticing offer, I\u2019d seriously consider it. Is it risky? Yeah. But it\u2019s also his third year in the NBA after two years in college; this may be the last chance to \u201csell high\u201d before a bad reputation sets in and you need to pay him.Brayden Burries\u2019 incredible dunk:The team\u2019s Halloween costumes, in all their glory:<\/p>\n

The Bucks now head to Minnesota to play the Timberwolves on Monday night. Catch the action at 7:00 p.m. CST on MY24.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Milwaukee Bucks lost badly, 136-11, to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Halloween. For three of four quarters, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":874047,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3772],"tags":[7,56844,1565,306,305,193,3846,6],"class_list":["post-874046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-basketball","tag-bucks-postgame-takeaways-player-grades","tag-bucks-analysis","tag-cavaliers","tag-cleveland","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-clevelandcavaliers","tag-nba"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117546029472091480","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=874046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/874047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=874046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=874046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=874046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}