Piece by: Nicholas Cosmai
The life of a fan that supports professional Wisconsin teams have been through multiple emotional rides the last few years.
The Green Bay Packers have made consecutive NFC championship games and have came out with no Super Bowl appearances. Even the Brewers before 2020 had harsh exits in the NLCS going 7 games against the Dodgers in 2018 and then knocked out the season after in a wildcard game against the Nationals. The Milwaukee Bucks have unfortunately followed suit, a conference final exit to the eventual champion Toronto Raptors in 2019 and a Conference Semi Final exit last season to the reigning eastern champions, Miami. After consecutive heartbreaking exits, why is it that this post season could go off script.
Firstly, we will have to back track to these series, sorry Bucks fans. The common denominators in both these series were Miami and Toronto were led by defensive minded coaches in Nick Nurse and Erik Spoelstra and led by excellent two-way wings in Kawhi Leonard and Jimmy Butler. Both teams went into their series with the same plan, force the ball out of Giannis’ hands by protecting the paint. Ultimately it worked in Toronto and then the following season it was blueprinted by Miami in the bubble. Giannis dropped off in both those losing series, averaging less points and assists in both.
Milwaukee then went to work on building around Giannis, the plan was to add another star player to help draw attention off Giannis. Originally, they had huge interest in trading for Chris Paul, that fell through and he was traded to Phoenix.
Eventually Milwaukee made a trade for Jrue Holiday. Boy did they give up a lot, multiple 1st and 2nd round picks along with Bledsoe and Hill.
So far, Milwaukee’s off season was sticking to the plan to re shape their roster around Giannis. There was just one tiny problem. Giannis had player option on his contract coming into this season, so he made the Bucks front office sweat a little. Which is really harsh considering how much they gave up bringing in another star. Nevertheless, eventually they agreed to a super max extension which was $228 million over 5 years, with a player option in the last year.
We now move to this season with a re-shaped Bucks roster. Some would consider the Bucks have pulled back a little compared to previous regular seasons. They will not finish lower than 3rd in the east, they may well pick up form and take the number one seed. They have won both season series against Brooklyn (2-1) and swept Philadelphia (3-0), so should they finish even on overall records, they will jump them in the seedings.
I do not think many people are putting them under the microscope from what is happening before their first-round matchup. But with records like these against the best teams in the East, we cannot ignore it. Against Philly, Giannis averages just under 28 points per game which is a touch under his overall season average of 29 points per game. Against the Brooklyn Nets, he turns into a completely different beast.
As has been alluded to, Milwaukee has needed to find another avenue of scoring in the playoffs when teams are trapping Giannis. Now having Holiday along with Middleton as 2 legitimate scorers they can give teams headaches defensively in the playoffs. So far it has showed. Last season whilst having a greater win/loss record, they finished 11th in offensive rating with 112.69. This season they have improved to 7th in offensive rating with 117.28. Whilst everyone has given praise to the Nets and their offense, it's actually the Bucks who currently rank 1st in the league for scoring with 119.6 points per game. In terms of point differential, they're 1st in the East whilst being 2nd in the league behind Utah with a differential of +6.2.
These are just a few things that show us why Milwaukee is a force yet again this season. But as the title suggests, is this the season they click and potentially come out of the East? I think they are actually as good a chance as they have been in previous seasons and as good as anyone in the eastern playoffs this season too. With them being more dynamic on offense they should be able to match anyone’s defense. They may well face the Heat again who could give them the same headaches, but will they be able to handle Middleton and Holiday this time around putting up big scores also?
Brooklyn will obviously test them defensively, but Brooklyn defensively are not a very good team, and the playoffs exposes those teams. It will be interesting to see if they can the next step and feature in this season’s NBA finals.
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