There are very few things in this life that are objectively true. All people are created equal and deserving of respect, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc. If I don’t drink any fluids for a week I will die. These are indisputable facts of the world we live in. Yet, the most remarkable aspect of the truth is its subjectivity. Humans have a remarkable way of compartmentalizing, justifying, redefining, or just generally remembering the facts of what happened in whatever way best suits the truth they wish to be correct. It all gets very complicated very quickly.
I might watch Domantas Sabonis kick Anthony Davis’s ass every single time they play (he’s 10-0 vs AD all time by the way!) and come to the conclusion that Domas owns that matchup. Draymond Green may see this and call it a “coincidence” and that it’s just “the way Sacramento runs their offense”. Who knows what the actual truth is?
There are thousands of biases that inform our values and affect the way we view the world around us, whether we’re aware of them or not. Can we govern these? Or are we simply a product of our upbringings? Is there even an objective correct answer within the randomness of this life? These are the existential questions that we’re faced with when considering the nature of the 2023-24 Milwaukee Bucks.
On paper, this team is incredible. They paired 2-time MVP and basketball Godzilla Giannis Antetokounmpo with Damian Lillard, a member of the NBA’s 75th anniversary team (same as his new teammate Giannis) and is the Trail Blazers all-time scoring leader. Beyond pure talent, the two present a perfect synergy of skills. Arguably the greatest slasher and most imposing athlete in NBA history setting screens for a transcendent scorer who can pull from two states over and still hit nothing but net. It’s basketball Nirvana.
There’s more substance to the team beyond this duo. Doc Rivers has won the 8th most games in NBA history as a head coach. This is an experienced roster, not only does Doc have a ring, but 5 of the 7 players who received consistent minutes on Milwaukee’s 2021 championship team are still in the building. Oh, and at the time of my writing they’re currently the 2nd seed in the East in the final weeks of the season. These are the facts.
So then why has the majority of the press surrounding the Bucks been negative? Why has Giannis even gone so far as to call it the hardest season of his career?
It’s quite simple really. Inconsistency has defined every aspect of this Bucks season. This inconsistency from coaches and players have led to a singular constant: that being a thick sense of disarray and unease overriding what was supposed to be a dream season.Let’s take a step back and take another look at the facts that got us here. Last year Milwaukee was the #1 seed in the East, and was promptly embarrassed by Jimmy Butler’s Heat in the playoffs. Milwaukee became the 6th #1 seed in NBA history that failed to win a playoff series, and the first to do so in 12 years. Worse yet, it wasn’t even close. After Giannis went down hard and sustained a back injury, the Bucks got absolutely smoked in 5 games. This wasn’t a polite ass-kicking either, Miami was chirping the entire time, Milwaukee couldn’t even get a shot attempt on their final possession of the season, and all culminating in an epic post game rant from Giannis that can only be done justice through viewing.
Getting waxed in such a spectacular fashion prompts a front office to start looking for fixes. You fire your championship winning coach. Guys that were once untouchable now aren’t so much. All of a sudden when a hall of fame player demands a trade, you allow yourself to think “what if?”. Fast forward 6 months, now there’s no more excuses left. You’ve got your guy who’s gonna put you over the top and you’ve handpicked a coach to lead the way. No more scapegoats.
So here’s where things got messy. This would’ve been a challenging situation for even the most seasoned pro to step into. Milwaukee opted to (in no small part due to Giannis’s recommendation) hire first timer Adrian Griffin to steer the ship. Griffin was well-respected in coaching circles and certainly deserving of the opportunity, but any reasonable person would have their doubts. It’s like if your friend was a pretty good surfer who wanted to try a more intense wave, so you took him straight to Nazaré.
When Terry Stotts stepped down before the season even began, it was clear what kind of year the Bucks were in for. Stotts was appointed lead assistant coach mostly as a courtesy to Damian Lillard (he was his head coach for years in Portland). Beyond that, Stotts was also meant to serve as an offensive minded veteran meant to complement and mentor the defensively oriented Griffin. The two clashed repeatedly, including a public spat at the end of practice that ultimately factored into Stotts’s decision to part ways.
Let’s turn our attention to the big picture. For all of the bad press, Griffin won games. He was 30-13 when he was let go. That’s roughly a 70% win rate, on pace for a 57 win year. Pretty damn good. Milwaukee wasn’t moved, and Griffin was fired after just 43 games.
If you want to read more about the locker room call outs, players changing plays in the huddle, and other general dysfunction that led to this firing, check this out.
Obviously, keeping the players happy is crucial for the success of any roster, but the on-the court issues were far more pressing. Milwaukee was second in the league in offensive rating, but if you watch the games you’ll see a lot of stagnation and wasted possessions bailed out from some magic by Giannis or Dame. The pick and roll threat the two presented was potent, but underutilized. Some of this can be attributed to guys adjusting to their new roles, something both stars have openly admitted. This is perfectly reasonable, quite frankly it’s expected.
What was inexcusable, however, was the defense. The Bucks were getting annihilated in transition, worst in the league at the time of Griffin’s firing. The halfcourt wasn’t much better, even after he listened to his players and went back to a drop coverage in the pick and roll, the usually stout Bucks were getting chewed up on a nightly basis. So, out went Griffin and in came Doc Rivers, who before this was calling games for ESPN.
What should be noted is that all the years Milwaukee had a top defense they employed hard nosed perimeter defenders. Eric Bledsoe, Donte Divincenzo, Wes Matthews, PJ Tucker, etc. Most important of them all though was Jrue Holiday. Holiday, for all of his questionable shots, is a dynamic, game-changing player on the defensive end of the floor. Bringing him in was the final piece to Milwaukee’s championship puzzle. Shipping him out was the only way they could acquire Damian Lillard. Now he’s doing his thing for Milwaukee’s stiffest competition, the Boston Celtics. That is a problem, but one you hope the Hall of Famer you just brought in can solve. You knew the defense would take a hit with Holiday gone, but this fall off has been absurd.
Before we go any further, I’d like to clarify that Lillard is not a bad defender by any means. He’s only 6′ 2″ but can move his feet and make plays well enough to not be a liability. However, because he bears so much offensive responsibility, his defense will occasionally suffer as he tires. That wouldn’t be a problem if the Bucks were starting a defensively minded backcourt player next to him. One that can cover the tougher matchups and rotate to help Dame. Instead, they’re starting Malik Beasely.
All due respect to Beasely, a potent offensive threat who’s shot 42% from 3 on 7 attempts a game, but he’s outmatched as a defensive stopper. Opposing guards feast, getting to the rim at will and forcing the still great Giannis and Lopez into no-win situations. Here’s a fun game: choose your favorite All-Star caliber guard and watch their highlights against Milwaukee. The guard defense is a serious problem, one that can’t just be fixed through schemes. Sure, Patrick Beverly is a fun option off the bench, but he’s 35, and at this point in his career has more bark than bite.
Since hiring Doc, Milwaukee has made some improvements. They’re now allowing the 4th least points in transition, and getting out themselves the 5th most in the league. Players have spoken about an improved cohesiveness, expected from a coach who’s been in the business longer than I’ve been alive.
Here’s the kicker- the Bucks are 16-17 with Doc. They still have the same frustrating inconsistency that was supposed to be fixed with the “steady hand” of Rivers. Doc has been repeatedly called out by his former players for his lack of leadership and inability to adjust his schemes, and has only won one ring (which was alllll the way back in 2008) despite coaching numerous teams since with title aspirations. What has he done to counteract this skepticism? He’s blamed everyone but himself.
Most recently, after he failed to adjust down the stretch while dropping to the god-awful Wizards and Grizzlies on back to back games. Doc lambasted not only his team, but the training staff and the travel coordinators (???) as well for not bringing the “necessary professionalism”.
He has also given us some hilarious quotes, so who’s to say if this was a bad hire or not.
Zach Kram recently put together a table that illustrates my point clearly. Team A is the Adrian Griffin Bucks, Team B is the Doc Rivers Bucks.
This is the same team, regardless of the coach. They are capable of beating anybody and anybody can beat them. Sometimes Bobby Portis looks like an All-Star, others it seems he’d get played off a G-League court. Lopez takes some of the most confusing threes I’ve ever seen. Dame is shooting 42% from the field, Khris Middleton has been injured, neither coach gave promising youngsters Andre Jackson Jr. and Chris Livingston real minutes to develop, leaving Milwaukee heavily reliant on aging, beat up wing defenders.
The only guy who has held up his end of the bargain is Giannis. Career highs in FG% and assists, not to mention his usual imposing defense to go along with 31 and 12 a night. The fact that he’s not an MVP front runner is malpractice, at least in this writer’s humble opinion. Look at what he did to the Thunder last week.
Giannis alone is reason enough to still believe in Milwaukee. However, I think there’s more substance than just blind faith. Let’s start with Dame Time. It’s been a down year sure (a “down year” where he was an All-Star starter, but I digress). I’m not ready to write him off. Not only is he an all-time playoff performer who has had opponents literally thanking God when he missed, but he’s never had a better team around him.
Historically speaking, the best way to stop Dame in the playoffs has been to blitz him hard as soon as he receives a ball screen. For those not familiar, this is an aggressive pick and roll coverage designed to force the ball handler to get rid of the ball at all costs. Against a shooting threat like Dame who likes to receive his screens high (above the 3 point line), this is particularly effective, because he can be pressured without a teammate nearby to bail him out.
This clip from the 2018 playoffs is a perfect example. Dame gets tied up, Nurkic can’t get the pass, quick turnover.
This is challenging to do for an entire series. Guys get tired, the back line is forced to be in a constant 4-3 scramble, and you need a center that is mobile enough to corral a guy as quick as Lillard. Yet it’s worked against Dame because A.) He’s had the misfortune of playing some of the most agile defensive centers ever (pre-back injury Anthony Davis and Draymond Green) and B.) his teammates haven’t been able to force the defense into a new look.
You beat a blitz by playing team basketball. Guy passes out, ball swings around to capitalize on the numbers advantage and scrambling defense, you get a good look at the rim or from 3 then knock it down. The story of those TrailBlazer teams was the same each year. Eventually Dame would exhaust himself trying to maintain his unsustainable usage and you could capitalize on the fact that his supporting cast likely couldn’t finish the job. That isn’t the case now.
Instead of Jusuf Nurkic, now Giannis is the benefactor of the defensive attention on Dame. Unlike Jusuf Nurkic (due respect to Nurk, he’s a fine player), Giannis is uniquely equipped to implode any team that gives him a number advantage and the ball in his hands rolling downhill. Let’s see what happened when the Timberwolves tried to trap Dame late in the 4th quarter during a game earlier this season.
Now Dame dumps the ball to a wide open Giannis, who uses the fact that every T-Wolves player is now laser focused on him to draw the defense in and make an excellent pass to a well-positioned Jae Crowder for an easy lay.
The only way the Bucks lose is if they miss shots, straight up. Milwaukee is 23-2 when Dame shoots over 50% from the field. Drop that to over 40% and it’s still 31-9. Nobody can stop them from getting the looks they want to get. Granted- they can’t stop anybody from doing the same against them. This team is built to win a shootout. The question is whether or not they’ll give themselves a chance to.
Things are getting spooky fast in Milwaukee. They’ve lost 4 games in a row, two to the aforementioned tanking Wizards and Grizzlies, one to the Raptors who were on a 15 game skid, and one to the Knicks. In this Knicks loss former Buck Donte Divincenzo laced a career high 8 threes, which hurts. What hurts more is allowing yet another massive guard performance, Jalen Brunson lit them up for 43 points with an 8-1 assist to turnover rate.
Vibes could not be worse, not only have the Bucks now put themselves in danger of losing the 2 seed, it’s a question whether or not they can even compete with the Celtics. The difference in wins between the two is actually larger than the difference between the 1 seed and the 10 seed in the West.
So is that it? Is that who this team is? A tired, washed, overhyped group mired in coaching controversy, wasting another year of their generational star’s prime? Maybe they are. But I’m not ready to give up on them yet.
Remember that Timberwolves game I clipped earlier? Dame shot 8-23 that night. He still hit this three late in the 4th. The offense had been stagnant, Minnesota was climbing back into it, and when they needed him the most he answered.
This is why I can’t quit Milwaukee. How many players are taking this shot, let alone making it? There is not a single duo in the league more talented than Dame and Giannis, and this upper echelon talent is what wins games in the playoffs. 4th quarter, game on the line, you have two guys who can go get buckets that only they can get. If there’s one thing Milwaukee has over Boston, it’s that. The C’s have shown a tendency to fall in love with tough jumpers towards the end of games, the Bucks have two proven closers.
The real question, of course, is can they even get themselves into these clutch scenarios to allow their stars to shine. Jalen Brunson, Donovan Mitchell, the Tyreses (Haliburton and Maxey), nearly every team in the East has a dominant offensive-minded guard that threatens Milwaukee’s paper thin perimeter. The teams that don’t are the boogeymen Heat and Jimmy Butler, the Magic (who still have microwave scorer Cole Anthony that could give the Bucks fits), and The Boston Celtics: basketball Thanos.
Here’s the truth- I don’t know who this Bucks team is. None of us do. We can talk in circles as much as we want and convince ourselves of any reality we choose to, it doesn’t change a thing. All we can do is watch.
There’s only one way to know the truth about this team, that comes when the dust has settled and the season is done. Because ultimately that’s the one thing we know to be true: At the end of it all there will be a winner, and there will be losers. With that, the number of losers is always far greater than the number of winners.
Milwaukee needs to figure out which one they want to be. Otherwise that decision will be made for them.
Ben Talks Ball 
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