Don’t look now, but the Milwaukee Bucks are just 1.5 games back of the 1 seed in the East.1 And with Brooklyn looking shakier with each game and Chicago having been hit by Covid-related absences, Milwaukee might be at the top of the conference before the week is out. Brook Lopez aside, the Bucks have most of their core players back and the team looks like the cream of the East once again.
The injury/illness absences have made Milwaukee a hard team to assess so far this season. Nevertheless: Over 400 possessions, lineups with the big three of Giannis Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton, and Jrue Holiday have outscored opponents by 18.5 points per 100 possessions. That’s in the 99th percentile of all lineups with at least 100 possessions played per Cleaning the Glass. That figure was at +12.9 last season and +11.9 in last year’s playoffs. So far so solid.
As I detailed in a CTG guide, the Bucks rode their defense to the 2021 title by keeping fouls to a minimum and restricting opponents off of the offensive glass. Giannis-Middleton-Holiday lineups are in the 97th and 98th percentiles of opponent offensive rebounding and free throw rate so far this season per CTG. The hyper Thanasis Antetokounmpo aside, most of Milwaukee’s rotation players maintain low foul rates. Milwaukee has maintained its winning formula on that side of the ball.
Those Giannis-Holiday-Middleton lineups are scoring 117.8 points per 100 possessions, nearly as good as Utah’s league-best offense. That number is down from last season, but offense is down across the league as a whole and the Bucks’ big three have arguably fallen off less than the rest. Lineups with that trifecta are scoring 113 points per 100 in the half court, a scary sign for teams around the league.
One thing to watch for: Milwaukee’s small ball lineups. It’s a small sample of 76 possessions, but the Giannis-Middleton-Holiday-Grayson Allen-Pat Connaughton unit has scored 128 points per 100 possessions. Woof. Sets like this one are simple and potent:
Stagger screens for Giannis give way to a fake handoff followed by a handoff leading into a Middleton pull up. It’s easy to see variations aplenty out of that set up: Grayson Allen setting a back screen on Holiday’s man for an alley oop look, Giannis and Middleton rolling into an empty side pick and roll, etc.
Oh, and Pat Connaughton is leading the league scoring 1.87 points per possession as the roll man per NBA Advanced Stats. Milwaukee has broken out some small-small pick and rolls, including with Holiday and Middleton. After the Middleton-Antetokounmpo pick and roll gave Milwaukee a potent end of game weapon last season, the Bucks might be getting some shiny new toys. With a season under their belt, Middleton and Holiday have established more chemistry.
I’ll be watching the Holiday-Middleton two man game too; Holiday is shooting nearly 60% on passes from Middleton per NBA Advanced Stats.
The bunching in the East notwithstanding, the Bucks remain a cut above the rest of the conference, especially with Brooklyn lost in the fog.
We’ll ignore Monday night’s stinker against a Miami Heat team missing Bam Adebayo and Jimmy Butler.