The Bucks can’t do anything right in what was supposed to be a breakout season
After a surprisingly good 2014/15 season, the Bucks decided to get rid of their veterans and get even younger. The results has been disastrous.
This season, expectations were higher and the Bucks have not been able to live up to them. Their defense ranks as the third-worst in the NBA after 19 games and their offense has slightly regressed as well. The Bucks are 7-12 for the season and their chances of making the playoffs are not looking good. So what happened?
The Bucks’ defense is not taking anyone by surprise anymore
The Bucks built their elite defense on a very aggressive defensive system that focused on overloading the strong side and creating turnovers. The downside was that by design, Milwaukee allowed a lot of corner three-pointers and attempts at the rim. Since they were able to force misses on a lot of those close shots and opponents only connected on 37 percent of those corner looks, the defense survived.
The problem with such a risky scheme is that any breakdown yields open looks and the effort and execution have to be there for a full 48 minutes for it to work. With the personnel changes made in the offseason, the Bucks lost a lot of the familiarity that made their defense work as well as smart veterans who rarely made mistakes. As a result, the defense is often a second too late or makes predictable moves that can be exploited.
This time opponents are taking advantage by connecting on 44 percent of the resulting corner three-pointers.
Teams have figured out how to attack the Bucks’ defense. They are simply not taking anyone by surprise anymore. The amount of turnovers they force are down and ball handlers are killing them by making simple passes to the corner. Better effort and coordination will go a long way into improving on that end but this roster doesn’t seem close to making the type of leap it needs yet.
Milwaukee is getting destroyed on the boards
The Bucks were bad on the boards last season but have only gotten worse this year. Opponents are getting more second-chance points against Milwaukee than against any other team.
The way the Bucks defend often has all five players scrambling and rotating, so a lot of times some of them get lost and give up rebounding position. Going small so often -- seven of the Bucks' most used lineups feature just one traditional big man -- is also partially to blame for the struggles. They are simply at a disadvantage most of the time a shot goes up because in order to play the way they play and be good on the boards, they would need a dominant rebounder at center who is always in position and chases every miss. Greg Monroe isn't that type of player.
Monroe is pulling down a solid percentage of available defensive rebounds but his numbers are inflated by playing next to four perimeter players and the team actually does better with him off the floor. He’s not explosive enough to contest and make that second jump to get the rebound. Sometimes he’s just lazy, giving up on plays in which he’s not close to the rim or trying to get away with not boxing out.
Next to another big man Monroe could take plays off without hurting his team as much. In Milwaukee, he can’t and he still hasn’t realized that.
The Bucks can’t score, either
Plenty of poor defensive teams get wins thanks to their offense. Unfortunately for the Bucks, that's not really an option. Three of their core players -- Michael Carter-Williams, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Monroe -- are solid shot creators but don't have enough range on their jumpers to space the floor for one another. Jabari Parker was supposed to give the team a big boost on offense but his three-point shot is non-existent, as he's gone 0-for-2 in 13 games.
Going against a set defense is a struggle for a Bucks team that takes the sixth fewest three-pointers in the league and now that they are not creating as many live-ball turnovers, they are not getting to run. The Bucks went from playing at the 12th fastest pace in the league last season to the slowest in the entire league. They are scoring almost four fewer fastbreak points, going from seventh in the league to 19th.
It’s the pace-and-space era in the NBA and the Bucks lack both as well as a dominant scorer. That’s simply too much for any offense to overcome. It’s not a surprise that they have they rank in the bottom 10 in points scored per 100 possessions.
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The struggles the Bucks are going through right now are concerning but they are normal for such a young roster. Antetokounmpo and Parker are just 20 years old, Carter-Williams and Khris Middleton are 24 and Monroe is 25. There's plenty of time for them to develop their individual skills as well as some chemistry as a group on both ends. In a few years, the Bucks could have something special.
For now, however, they are just an all-around terrible team.
