Thaddeus Young’s contributions DID show up in the box score for the Indiana Pacers

Thaddeus Young showed he was more than just a glue guy and scored a season-high 25 points in the Indiana Pacers win over the Milwaukee Bucks.

Thaddeus Young dominated Giannis Antetokounmpo. There isn’t another way to describe what happened on Wednesday night when the Indiana Pacers field dressed the Milwaukee Bucks.

While the Greek Freak struggled to score only 12 points (compared to his 25.9 average), Young dropped in a game-high 25 points to go with his 11 rebounds, 5 steals, and 4 assists.

Helluva game for a glue guy.

Sure, Antetokounmpo still had a double-double of his own with 10 rebounds, as well as 7 assists, but his reluctance to shoot helped give him the worst +/- in the game (-31) to Young’s game-high +28. More importantly, it opened the door for the Pacers to hold a double-digit lead over the Bucks’ heads for most of the contest.

Thaddeus is often a player who lives within the chaos on the rest of the team. You don’t see plays ran for him, but it isn’t surprising to see him scoring in double-digits. Plenty of players talk about not needing the ball, but Young is 7th in among their 10-deep rotation as far as usage while being in the top 4 in advanced stats like win shares or box plus-minus.

We beat the dead horse known as “Thaddeus Young’s contributions don’t show up in the box score,” but the man is a perfect example of it. His defensive flexibility doesn’t always result in steals, but it often keeps whoever he defends from wreaking havoc.

However, Young’s contributions were much more obvious on Wednesday as Antetokounmpo became a non-factor in the game. While the cover star for NBA2K19 floundered, Thad put up one of his best performances with Indiana.

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Some of his calling cards were there — his five steals matched a season-high — but a 3-pointer and those four assists only added to what was a memorable night for Young. You can’t complain about 64.3 percent shooting from the floor, especially when he was 8 of 10 from inside the arc.

Young’s impact on the team is often hard to measure. Outside of his steals and rebounds, there are low expectations of him statistically. Again, they aren’t running plays for him right and left. His points often come when plays break down and the obvious pass is to him for an easy basket. It’s one reason why he makes over 50 percent of his shots.

Against the Bucks, his took advantage of mismatches that allowed him to post his defender but the most of the time he was doing his usual job of cleaning things up within Indiana’s offense or creating his own chances in the chaos of steals or rebounds.

If you throw out his 3-point attempts, his 10 field goal attempts came from a total of 15 feet away according to NBA.com. That’s an average of a foot-and-a-half away. That’s a very Thaddeus Young sort of night.

But Young made it clear against the Bucks that he isn’t just a glue guy. He showed that he can score against the NBA’s best while holding them down defensively. You didn’t need the box score to tell, but it highlighted the damage Thad did to the Bucks.

Most nights, Thaddeus Young will live in the chaos around the Indiana Pacers and still make leave his mark. Some nights, though, he is the cause of it.