Four members of the Milwaukee Bucks played exceptionally well this week but only three can make the Player of the Week Rankings.

The Milwaukee Bucks had a great opportunity to make up ground in the Eastern Conference playoff race this week. They played five games: at the New York Knicks, vs. the Chicago Bulls, at the Washington Wizards, vs. the Atlanta Hawks, and at the Charlotte Hornets.

The Bucks took care of business at home, winning both home contests, against the two toughest teams they faced this week, Chicago and Atlanta. They did exactly what you would expect them to do on the road, winning one of their three games. They beat Charlotte and lost to New York and Washington. Milwaukee has won 33% of their road games so far this season with a 6-18 record.

The Bucks started the week five games back of the eighth seed in the East and maintained that distance away from the playoff picture at the end of the week. Despite not making up ground in the playoff race, this was a good week for the Bucks. They battled with five teams that have better records than they do and two of the teams are very likely going to be in the playoffs.

The Bucks Player of the Week Rankings were hard to develop. There were four very qualified candidates. I dived into the numbers for all four of the players to give you the three best. It was sad leaving someone who definitely would have made the Rankings in previous weeks out, but like in basketball itself, that’s just the nature of the beast.

John Henson was not one of the four players vying for a spot in the Rankings this week. I just wanted to give him a shout out because he did something I found to be extraordinary. He blocked 3.2 shots per game this week while playing less than 20 minutes a night. That blew my mind!

That would be 5.9 blocks per 36 minutes. Henson is a really good defender and the Bucks should be happy they signed him to a very reasonable contract extension.

Now back to business. Let’s get to Rankings!