On Sunday, the Milwaukee Bucks put together a 123-109 win over the Philadelphia 76ers to complete a 4-0 homestand. Damian Lillard scored 16 of his 25 points in the fourth quarter to help seal the victory, while Giannis Antetokounmpo added 34 points, 15 rebounds and six assists to put the Bucks seven games over .500 for the first time this season.
The win was their least convincing of the homestand as a depleted 76ers team gave the Bucks more issues than expected. While he agreed his team’s focus and execution was the worst it had been during the last four games, head coach Doc Rivers also shared an uncomfortable truth.
“Early in the year, we may have lost that though,” Rivers said. “Tonight, we win the game and that’s what you have to do. You gotta stack up wins when you can and we’re doing that.”
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With the completion of Sunday’s game, their 41st of the regular season (the NBA Cup title game does not count in the standings), the Bucks have reached the regular season’s halfway point.
After sweeping the homestand and winning seven of their last eight games, the Bucks’ 24-17 record puts them in fourth place in the Eastern Conference, two games back of the New York Knicks. However, they are 4.5 games back of the Boston Celtics in second, which makes them further from second place than ninth place as the Detroit Pistons are just 3.5 games back of the Bucks.
Since Nov. 11, the Bucks are tied with the Houston Rockets for the NBA’s third-best record (22-9, .710 win percentage). Only the Oklahoma City Thunder and Cleveland Cavaliers have been better during that stretch.
“Really? I’ll take it,” Antetokounmpo said, when informed of that fact after Sunday’s game. “I’m happy. We’re playing great team ball, we’re competing defensively, we’re playing in a good pace. There’s gonna be times, maybe one or two times we wasn’t ourselves the last couple of weeks but overall we’ve been competing every game and getting better.
“Guys are playing great and making shots, playing the right way, making the extra pass, helping one another defensively. So I’m happy where we are right now. But we gotta keep on improving. Gotta keep on improving every single day. But we’ve been playing good. But it’s not enough.”
The reality is the Bucks will pay all season for their 2-8 start. Even if the Bucks win 71 percent of their games during their next 41, they would still only end up with 53 wins. If they want to end the season in the East’s top three, their margin for error is small after that disastrous start. But this is the hand that they dealt themselves, so they will need to remain focused to be in a position to contend for a championship by the end of the regular season
Let’s take a look at three headlines from the regular season’s first half.
Antetokounmpo and Lillard dominating games together
The Bucks have the NBA’s highest-scoring duo with Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard. Antetokounmpo is in the middle of another MVP-caliber season. He’s tied for the league’s highest per-game scoring average (31.5) with Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, while shooting 60.5 percent from the field. Thus far, Antetokounmpo has grabbed 12.0 rebounds per game, his highest per-game rebound tally since the 2019-20 season, and dished out 6.0 assists per game, which would be his second-highest per-game assist average of his career.
In his second season with the Bucks, Lillard is averaging only slightly more points per game this season, 25.0 points per game as compared to 24.3 last season, but he is scoring those points more efficiently. At 44.9 percent from the field, Lillard’s shooting percentage is up from 42.4 in his first season in Milwaukee and his 39.2 percent 3-point percentage is the best he has shot from deep since the 2020-21 season. On top of that, he is dishing out 7.1 assists per game.
More important than the numbers though are the moments the duo plays together and the growth of their two-man game.
“You can just see there’s been some reps, time, confidence into it, you can just see it,” 76ers coach Nick Nurse said of the Antetokounmpo-Lillard combo. “Maybe it’s just time. It took the time and reps to get clicking a little bit, but I think they’re both playing very aggressive.
“I think Dame’s playing more aggressive and he should. And I think Giannis is playing very aggressive, doing his thing. And I think the feeling or the chemistry must have gone up a level because they’ve both gone up a level in their aggressive nature, the way that they’re playing.”
When Rivers took over as head coach midway through last season, he told reporters the two-man game between Antetokounmpo and Lillard would be an emphasis for him offensively and Rivers has delivered on that promise. Whether it is Lillard and Antetokounmpo beating the Kings’ aggressive defense with the short roll or Lillard dishing it to Antetokounmpo for a foot race to the rim in Orlando, the connection between the Bucks’ superstar duo has been a more prevalent part of the Bucks’ success this season.
Need more answers: Offense and Khris Middleton
Antetokounmpo and Lillard have been spectacular this season and the Bucks can take a lot of confidence from their two best players playing well in their second season together, but the team’s offensive production overall has not reached those same levels. The Bucks have the NBA’s top-scoring duo. As a team, they’ve made 38.8 percent from behind the 3-point line, the league’s second-best 3-point percentage.
Yet, Milwaukee sits at 12th in offensive efficiency on the season, scoring 113.6 points per 100 possessions.
“You’re going by straight numbers,” Rivers said, when asked about being 12th in offensive efficiency in Orlando on Jan. 10. “Our offense is better than (12th), I can tell you that. So, if you want to go by numbers, yeah, we’re (12th). That’s because we don’t shoot as many shots as other teams. We don’t get as many attempts. And we never will, we’re just not a fast team, so there’s a limit.
“But as far as efficiency, we love how we’re playing. We love the ball movement. Our key, obviously, is ball movement. When our two main guys are playing the way they’re playing and moving the ball, it’s no coincidence they’re actually scoring more when they’re doing that because you can’t load up on those two guys. And so it’s been fantastic to see guys are buying into it and it’s been great. Spacing is huge.”
While Rivers has confidence in his team and believes they are performing at a level that may currently outpace their numbers, the Bucks will need that to become their reality at some point this season. It can’t just be something that they say or feel; it will need to be something that actually shows up on the floor. Maybe that means consistently playing at a quicker pace or bumping up their 3-point volume from the 12th-highest rate, but eventually, the offense will need to perform like the defense.
GO DEEPER
What we’re seeing from the Bucks: Giannis’ short rolling, Dame’s pace and more
At the halfway point of the season, the Bucks are eighth in defensive efficiency, giving up 110.9 points per 100 possessions. After the 2-8 start, the Bucks sat in 22nd in that category, surrendering 115.7 points per 100 possessions. Since that disastrous start included teams regularly beating the Bucks up and down the floor in transition, the Bucks’ defense has allowed only 109.3 points per 100 possessions, fifth-best in the NBA since Nov. 11.
On top of seeing real results outside of strong vibes on offense, the Bucks also need to see Khris Middleton get all the way back. For the Bucks to be a team that can compete with the best in the league, they need the player who is supposed to be their third-best get to a spot where he is playing well enough on a night-to-night basis with no setbacks or injury issues to play the third most minutes and to perform well in those minutes.
“Overall, slowly, slowly, I believe he’s going to ramp up,” Antetokounmpo said after Sunday’s game. “He’s going to ramp up, but right now, he’s helping us. He’s playing with a high IQ, making good plays, making shots, being vocal. In his 25 minutes that he’s there, you can feel his presence, so he’s going to ramp up eventually.”
Middleton is currently averaging 12.6 points, 3.9 rebounds and 5.1 assists in 23.5 minutes per game. Extrapolated to a per-36 minute rate, Middleton would be averaging 19.3 points, 6.0 rebounds and a career-best 7.7 assists per game. Those numbers would be incredibly helpful for the Bucks, but the 12.5 minutes per game between Middleton’s current production and that extrapolation have never felt further apart. And those minutes could be rife with further complications.
During Middleton’s initial ramp-up in his return from offseason procedures on both ankles, adding Middleton to the starting lineup left Lillard less aggressive and looking to facilitate rather than playing his game and aggressively attacking every minute on the floor. Rather than forming the best version of the team by combining the talents of the team’s three best players, lineups featuring the Bucks’ big three looks disjointed as they tried to figure out how they could all work together.
For the Bucks to reach their ultimate peak with this roster, they will need their big three to find synergy and figure out how to mesh their games together, especially at the end of games. After a year of trying, Rivers has found a way to make that happen with Antetokounmpo and Lillard. Now the Bucks need to take a few more steps and find a way to incorporate Middleton, which may help them also move up the offensive ranks as a team.
Tough road ahead
While the completion of the 41st game and a two-day break before the Bucks’ next game provides a convenient spot to reflect on what has occurred thus far, the Bucks are not going to get a chance to reset. That is still three weeks away when (most of) the Bucks take a seven-day All-Star break.
These days between Game 41 and the All-Star break are always seen as the dog days of every NBA season as players begin to anticipate the approaching break and deal with rumors as teams head toward the Feb. 6 trade deadline. (Our Bucks trade deadline primer will be out later this week.)
The schedule makers did not do the Bucks any favors for this season’s dog days. Starting with their game on Wednesday in New Orleans against the Pelicans, the Bucks will play 13 games in 22 days before the All-Star break.
Nine of the 13 games will be on the road. There are four back-to-backs in this stretch and only one of their back-to-backs will be played in the same arena as the Bucks host the Philadelphia 76ers on Feb. 9 and the Golden State Warriors on Feb. 10 at Fiserv Forum. Only three of their opponents (LA Clippers, Memphis Grizzlies, Oklahoma City Thunder) at this point have equal or better record than the Bucks, so there are winnable games in this stretch. But for a team that is 8-10 on the road this season, and one that has shown a penchant to play down to lesser teams, the next three weeks will provide a real test.
“We just gotta be there mentally,” Lillard said when asked about the next 13 games. “We gotta be engaged. We gotta be disciplined and we gotta be together. I think our preparation and our mentality lately — we see the type of success that it has given us — and we gotta take that on the road.
“We got to have it in the games where we not making so many shots, where we don’t feel great. I think if our mind is right and we able to do a lot of the things that we’re doing, we’ll find ourselves in a good spot to win a game anywhere against any team. So I think in this closing stretch, we got to have that more than anything else because it’s going to come down to where our mind is.
“So if we do, I think we’ll go into the break feeling good about ourselves. And I think right now we trending in that direction.”
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(Photo of Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard: Ethan Miller/ Getty Images)
