Milwaukee Bucks 110 – OKC Thunder 93
It was supposed to be Nikola Topic’s night culminating his inspirational fight back from cancer, but evidently someone forgot to tell recently traded Ousmane Deng.
Deng evidently didn’t show Sam Presti enough for regular rotation time during his stay in Oklahoma. So what Mr. Deng just basically did on Thursday evening was a nice little thing for the Detroit Pistons as they now have possesion of the overall No. 1 seed heading into the All-Star break..as Mr. Deng and the Bucks without Giannis and Myles Turner blew out the Thunder by a score of 110 – 93.
The line for Deng is impressive…36:28 time on the floor, 19 pts, 11 rebounds, 6 assists, 4 blocked shots, +16.
No. 1 Star of the Game and not even close.
All-Star Chet Holmgren played, as did Jaylin Williams. But both paled to what Deng brought to the table on Thursday night.
In the Milwaukee offense…Ousmane Deng wasn’t relegated to standing still on the wings and pretty much doing nothing. Quite the contrary…it seemed or felt as if every Buck posession went through Deng he at the least got a touch.
How could this be? I mean…Ousmane looked beautiful. fluid, and smooth. Plus, he got it done on the boards and defensively as well.
This performance by Deng folllowed a 17 point performance the previous night in a win for the Bucks over Orlando Magic. Jared McCain is a nice pick up for the Thunder, but in getting him do we now ask ourselves…’Did the Milwaukee Bucks win the trade deadline?’
Two games isn’t enough time to answer my question above in the previous ‘graph’, but lest we forget Deng was the 11th player taken in his draft class.
So all things considered it was a good night for Ousmane Deng, the Detroit Pistons, and Ousmane’s agent.
In closing, my heartfelt admiration goes out to Nikola Topic for his comeback on his cancer journey. While we don’t have the same type of cancer, I know firsthand what it takes to hang in their during the toughest days of chemo.
Nikola Topic, my prayers are with you. You didn’t surrender. God bless you. Stay with the fight.
Mike J