After a rough 1-3 start to the season, Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks needed a win — and the basketball gods lined up one for them Thursday night. A rested Bucks team was about to face a Memphis squad on the second night of a back-to-back with six players out, including starters Desmond Bane and Marcus Smart.
The result? The Bucks were blown out by 23 points in a game they never led after three minutes and were never within 10 points midway through the second quarter.
Milwaukee has now dropped four in a row, is 1-4 on the season, and has the third-worst net rating in the league (-8.2) thanks to a 24th-ranked offense and defense. Antetokounmpo was right when he said, “Right now, we don’t have an identity,” and Khris Middleton coming back from surgery on both ankles isn’t going to fix things right away.
It may be a small sample size, but it’s time to start reaching for the panic button in Milwaukee.
WHAT IS WRONG?
A lot But it starts with this:
Missed jump shots and poor transition defense is a losing combination.
Milwaukee is just completely missing shots. Against Memphis, the Bucks were 9-of-42 from 3 (21.4%), and for the season they shoot 33.3% overall from beyond the arc and 28% on over-the-break 3s. It’s not just 3-pointers either, the Bucks are shooting 35.1% on jump shots this season (any shot outside the paint). They are shooting just 33.9% on shots in the float range (inside the paint but outside the restricted area). If they don’t get to the rim, they don’t win, at least not consistently.
Now combine that with a 154.1 defensive net rating in transition, second-worst in the league, and you have a real problem – the Bucks are missing shots, opponents are grabbing the boards, racing outside and scoring in transition.
“The defensive transition was still terrible tonight and so that’s on me. It’s all on me until we get it right,” Coach Doc Rivers said postgame. “We have to fix this.”
Rivers’ bigger problem may be that the book is out on how to attack Milwaukee’s defense — bully Damian Lillard and other Bucks guards (as Zach Lowe noted). The defensive rotations behind them haven’t been sharp, but there are places to attack in Milwaukee now and teams are going to them.
THE ILLNESS OF DAMIAN LILLARD
On opening night, against an undermanned Philadelphia squad, Damian Lillard looked like he was back, hitting 6-of-12 3-pointers en route to 30 points.
Compare that to Thursday night, when Lillard shot 1-of-12 from 3 and finished with four points against the Grizzlies. If it was just one game, we could swing it, but since opening night, Lillard has shot 6-of-33 from beyond the arc. He collapsed, and the Antetokounmpo/Lillard pick-and-roll that everyone thought would be unstoppable isn’t connecting like it needs to.
Milwaukee’s issues are broader than just Lillard or Middleton being out — they’re not sharing the ball, there’s little movement in the offense and things are just flat on that end. Milwaukee used to have a defense that carried them through those rough offensive patches, but despite the best efforts of Brook Lopez — who has some bounce in his step to start this season — Milwaukee looks out of sync on both ends.
It’s ugly. This is one of the teams under the most pressure this season and if things don’t turn around quickly, that pressure will only build, leading to…
GIANNIS BUSINESS IS TRADING
We predicted before the season that Giannis Antetokounmpo trade rumors would begin after the Bucks began to struggle, with league sources telling NBC Sports that he was on everyone’s “watch list.” We just didn’t expect the buzz to start the second week of the season.
Already the rumors are circulating – via the well-connected Bill Reiter of CBS Sports – that “teams are circling – and hopeful” and that the Heat and Nets are at the top of the list. You can be sure that Golden State would also be interested and willing to throw Jonathan Kuminga into the deal.
To be fair, Antetokounmpo signed a contract extension with Milwaukee just a season ago — after he decided the Lillard trade was a probative property and the front office was committed to winning — but the ultra-competitive Antetokounmpo is not a patient man. After the ugly loss to Memphis, he sounded like a guy trying to figure things out where he’s at, not moving on, by Jim Owczarski of The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
“Losing, it’s frustrating, but we’re doing the right things. Like (Wednesday) night we got in Memphis and we got together as a team, watched film. Not like eight, nine guys playing. We watched film, we talk about, like what we can do better What we don’t do so well, let’s hold each other accountable.
“This is part of the season, it doesn’t go our way. But, to lose two, to lose three, to lose four, to lose five, to lose six in a row; to lose one, it’s always frustrating. But, again, my dad used to say , ‘why do (you) moan if you will not give up?’ So I will not give up.”
Milwaukee is not going to trade Antetokounmpo unless he asks out and right now that is not on the table. Even if he does, with that contract extension the Bucks have leverage to pull things out. However, the pressure is on and the idea that Antetokounmpo might ask isn’t ridiculous.
Especially if the Bucks don’t turn things around and start winning some games.
