MILWAUKEE — Mike Brown said Mohamed Diawara’s unflappable attitude has made him feel better about removing the rookie from the rotation so Jeremy Sochan can get a chance.
“Yes, it can [hurt his confidence],” Brown said. “But that’s my job more than anybody else’s is to make sure I communicate with him and anybody else when that happens. There’s a part of me — and I could be wrong about this — but there’s a part of me that doesn’t think so because I started him. And I thought it would rattle him. It doesn’t rattle him. I bring him off the bench in the first half. And then I don’t play him at all in the second half. And I throw him out there the next game. The dude — at least my experience doing those things with him — he doesn’t get rattled. And like I said, the biggest one is, ‘You’re starting tonight.’ He might not even play two games and it might be a ‘big game.’ And he’s just like, OK. And the way he plays, it’s OK. He’s a pretty confident young guy.”
Diawara was surging before both the All-Star break and signing of Sochan, who has been given an opportunity at backup forward to determine whether he can help in the playoffs. As a result, Diawara’s role has been more sporadic — he logged a DNP in Chicago on Sunday. Sochan has largely struggled.
Brown said he’s not settled on one or the other for the backup forward minutes. In Tuesday’s loss to the Cavs, for instance, Sochan got the nod in the first half, played poorly, and Diawara took over in the second.
Brown said Sochan has the advantage now but Diawara “is coming.”
“Back and forth. It could be Jeremy tonight. It could be Mo tomorrow night,” Brown said. “Mo has played well. He’s gotten better. Jeremy just hasn’t had an opportunity to. And the biggest thing is, obviously between the two guys is Jeremy is in his fourth season and he’s a little bigger, he’s a little stronger and he knows the league a little bit better. But Mo is coming. And I say Mo is coming because everybody needs to understand that. Not just Jeremy. But everybody. Because Mo is coming.”
OG Anunoby has regressed in the four games since returning from a toenail avulsion, shooting just 34.7 percent while averaging 10.5 points.
In the seven games before the two-week injury absence, Anunoby averaged 21.7 points on 58.6 percent shooting.
Huge difference.
“He was playing at an extremely high level. When he was out, we even had a conversation — he was like, ‘Man, I was playing extremely well.’ Which he was,” Brown said. “He was shooting the 3. He was rebounding. His crashes were unbelievable. He was getting out in transition. His decisions were quick and decisive. And he was really impacting the game on both ends of the floor. The injuries have happened. And he hasn’t played like that since. But he’s only been back for a few games too.”