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It might've been April 1st, but for most of Wednesday's 95-91 win against the Chicago Bulls, Michael Carter-Williams wasn't fooling around.
The Bucks snapped a nine-game home losing streak on Wednesday that dated back to 2010 against the Bulls, as Carter-Williams' aggressive play helped him score a team-high 21 points on top of pulling down 10 rebounds, his first double-double as a Bucks player.
The majority of the reason why Carter-Williams was successful was because of his 6-foot-6 height and 30-pound weight advantage over point guard Aaron Brooks. Carter-Williams at one point scored 15 consecutive points in the second quarter, with his 7-11 shooting setting a career-high for field goals in a quarter and his 15 points in the period also tying a personal high. In the process, the Bucks erased the Bulls' nine point lead and ended up tying the game at 48 going into halftime.
"I was just trying to use my size advantage, and if they came over to help, I knew one of my teammates was going to have an open look." Carter-Williams said. "I just tried to pick my poison. If they weren't going to help, I was going to try to finish over the top, and if they didn't, I would try to find my teammates. They did a great job of moving the ball and finishing down low," he explained afterwards.
After outputs of 25 and 28 at the beginning of the month, Carter-Williams shot at or below 33 percent from the field in all but one of Milwaukee's previous eight games heading into Wednesday. He averaged 10.5 points per game during that span and committed a total of 12 turnovers in back-to-back games against Miami and Indiana just last week.
Even though Carter-Williams went 2-for-6 from the field after the second period, head coach Jason Kidd was still pleased with how MCW's teammates actively looked to involve him.
"I think he got some great looks, he made some great plays, but I thought the biggest thing was that his teammates trusted him with the ball. They put the ball in his hands and guys played off of him which was nice to see."
This season, Carter-Williams averaged four turnovers a game, with a 14.9 turnover ratio. The Bucks as a team average 16.8 a game, which is second-most in the league behind MCW's former team, the Philadelphia 76ers. MCW was encouraged by the way his teammates constantly battled to exploit the matchup.
"We just stayed with it. A couple of times I turned it over or missed a shot, my teammates kept going back to it. My teammates had faith in me to make the right play, and I just tried to do the best that I can to find them and get my team the win."
Chicago had three solid looks that would've tied the game up at 94, but misses from Nikola Mirotic and Mike Dunleavy crumbled the Bulls late. Even though Giannis Antetokounmpo went 1 of 2 from the line after an intentional foul from Joakim Noah, a four-point advantage was enough for the Bucks.
The Bucks will be looking to snap another losing streak when they face Boston this Friday, as Milwaukee has lost 11 straight games away from home this season.