Milwaukee Bucks: Khris Middleton As A Small Ball 4?

Milwaukee Bucks coach Larry Drew didn’t anticipate having to cobble together one of those “small ball” lineups, not with an array of big men including Larry Sanders, Ersan Ilyasova, John Henson, Zaza Pachulia, Ekpe Udoh and Miroslav Raduljica to choose from.

That was before the injuries rained down. Pachulia came into training camp still recovering from an Achilles injury and just saw his first preseason action on Monday, logging 17 minutes with eight points and two rebounds in Milwaukee’s 105-84 loss at Chicago.

Then Ilyasova sprained his right ankle in the preseason opener on Oct. 9 and hasn’t played since. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported last week that Ilyasova is walking without a limp. But he’s not running yet and his status is very much in doubt for the season opener Oct. 30 against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden.

Finally, Udoh had arthroscopic surgery on his right knee on Oct. 11 and is expected to miss four to six weeks. The surgery came after he missed the Bucks’ first two preseason games.

So much for all that frontcourt depth.

As it stands, Henson will start at the 4 in place of Ilyasova, but the Bucks have also been working with a smaller lineup that features 6’7” Khris Middleton at the power forward slot.

Drew was pleased with his chemistry experiment.

“We experimented [Thursday and Friday],” Drew said. “Actually, it works out pretty good. I think we have guys that have the ability to move around to different spots, although it does put us at a [height] disadvantage.”

Middleton has been solid in the preseason, for the most part. He scored 12 points in the loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves at Sioux Falls, S.D., on Oct. 10 and had 15 points in the second half of Milwaukee’s loss at Memphis on Oct. 15.

He started at the 4 on Monday night and struggled a bit. He was 2-for-9 and finished with five rebounds and nine points—to go with five fouls—in 26 minutes against the Bulls.

Middleton says it’s an adjustment, to be sure.

“It’s just on the defensive side, it’s going to be an adjustment with some mismatches,” Middleton said. “But if we play the right way on the defensive side, talking and everything, we’ll be fine.”

The Bucks had to make some adjustments on the defensive end with the smaller unit. The bigs had been showing on the pick-and-roll, but are doing less of that now.

“Going small does force us to change our coverages,” Drew said. “This is a players’ league and I’ve got to go with what works best for the makeup of this team.”

Middleton has played in all five of Milwaukee’s preseason games, logging 92 minutes. He’s 15-for-41 from the floor (36.6 percent), including 2-of-9 from deep. He’s got 14 rebounds, eight assists, six steals and seven turnovers.

Middleton came out of Texas A&M after injuring his knee and dropped to the second round, where he was taken by the Detroit Pistons with the 39th overall pick in 2012. He reinjured the knee early last season and his rookie year was largely spent on the pine.

He played in just 27 games and averaged 17.6 minutes, 6.1 points, 1.9 rebounds and one assist per game while shooting 44 percent overall and 31.1 percent from distance. He also played three games with the Fort Wayne Mad Ants in the D-League, averaging 11 points, 7.7 rebounds and three assists in 26.3 minutes a game.

Middleton came to Milwaukee as part of the sign-and-trade deal that sent Brandon Jennings to Motown. Brandon Knight and Viacheslav Kravtsov also came to the Bucks in that trade, with Kravtsov being moved again over the summer along with Ish Smith to Phoenix in the deal that brought Racine native Caron Butler to the Bucks.

Interestingly, Middleton and Kravtsov played together in Las Vegas for the Pistons during Summer League action a couple of weeks before the Jennings deal went down.

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