This season, the Milwaukee Bucks have played nine games without Giannis Antetokounmpo.
In those games, they posted a 4-5 record. In two of those nine, Damian Lillard played, but Khris Middleton did not. In one of those nine, Middleton played, but Lillard did not. In the six games without Antetokounmpo, but with Lillard and Middleton, the Bucks won 2-4.
That will likely be the reality for the Bucks when they take on the Indiana Pacers in Game 1 of the first round on Sunday. While Bucks president Peter Feigin said Antetokounmpo “definitely won't be back for Sunday.” Milwaukee radio show On Thursday, the Bucks listed Antetokounmpo as questionable on their first injury report for Game 1.
Even with Antetokounmpo's status technically elevated, the Bucks spent the past week preparing for life without him on Sunday.
“I don't think it's difficult because I think when you repeat it, you get better, so we have to prepare as we are now,” Lillard said after the Bucks' loss to the Magic last Sunday. “And I think the beauty of that is that we know that's enough. We've beaten really good teams the way we are now. I've been on teams that won and they didn't have Giannis, they didn't have Khris Middleton, they didn't have Brook Lopez or Bobby Portis or…
“It's the best team I've been on. So we're capable. We can win games. And when we (Antetokounmpo) come back, we'll be better. So I think that's the way I look at it. I don't look at it like, 'Oh man.' We can't.” ..'We've shown it and I've been there before.
Lillard's assessment is correct. Even with Antetokounmpo on the sidelines, there are still five NBA champions (Middleton, Lopez, Portis, Pat Connaughton, Thanasis Antetokounmpo) on the roster alongside Lillard, as well as a group of veterans desperate to win a ring and a handful of young players. The Bucks have enough on the roster to take on the Pacers in the first round, but they will need to gel, play to their potential and be a team greater than the sum of its parts.
So, going back to those six games the Bucks played with Lillard and Middleton on offense while Antetokounmpo was on the sidelines…
If the Bucks have a chance to win without Antetokounmpo, they will need to play the way they played in their best moments and avoid long stretches when they were at their worst. During the season, the difference between their best and their worst was astonishing.
When the Bucks met the Phoenix Suns on March 17, they won 140-128, one of nine games this season in which they scored 140 points. They tied an NBA record with 18 3-pointers made in the first half and led 82-60 going into the locker room at halftime. Lillard finished the night with 31 points, five rebounds and 16 assists, while Middleton added 22 points and seven assists. Throughout the game, the Bucks moved the ball from side to side and regularly made multiple plays on a single possession.
The Suns didn't show playoff-caliber defense here, but the Bucks played with purpose throughout the possession.
Lillard saw Jusuf Nurkic on the level on the first move, a pick-and-roll play with Lopez, and threw it to Jae Crowder, who saw Nurkic out of position and skipped it to Lopez. Knowing that Nurkic was falling behind him, Lopez took the ball to the other side to dribble the ball. When Devin Booker denied Malik Beasley, Lopez continued to move toward Middleton in the corner. Middleton was able to get around the corner on Kevin Durant and get deep into the paint before kicking it to Lopez for a wide-open 3.
A good offense requires the participation of all five players. This possession required Lillard and Middleton to make the correct passes to start and end the sequence, but it also required Lopez to set screens to open up both players and make aggressive plays to move the ball from one side of the floor to the other.
“I'm just trying to do whatever is necessary to win. Who knows what it might be like one game versus the next, or one possession versus the other,” Lopez said. “I'm just going to try to be the best I can be. From the get-go, I know my job is going to be setting good screens, getting Dame open, getting Khris open, running the floor, and handling the paint a lot.”
Lillard and Middleton can They are great isolation players, but if the Bucks want to succeed in the postseason without Antetokounmpo, they must keep the ball moving with the pass or dribble and force the Pacers to defend multiple plays per possession.
“We can't falter. That's even with Giannis,” Bucks coach Doc Rivers said. “When we falter, we've proven over the years that we're not good offensively. But now when that ball is there and we move it there and we get to the second side – or we get to the second movement, maybe is a better way to say it – we've proven that we're really good. So we are Owns To do that.”
When they're not playing with an offensive intent, it can get ugly, especially with Antetokounmpo on the bench.
While the Bucks managed to score 140 points without Antetokounmpo against the Suns, they also had two of their worst performances of the season with Antetokounmpo on the bench. On January 17, the Bucks suffered their worst loss of the season, a 135-95 win against the Cleveland Cavaliers, as Lillard finished the night with 17 points on 7-of-20 shooting, and Middleton finished with two points on 1-of-10 shooting. At the end of the season, the Bucks lost 133-88 to the Orlando Magic, which was the team's lowest-scoring game this season. Lillard scored 16 points on 2-of-14 shooting in Orlando, while Middleton scored 17 points on 6-of-15 shooting.
Those two games featured too many moments of the kind of basketball the Bucks need to avoid.
Instead of going from action to action against the Cavaliers, Lillard and Middleton spent most of the first quarter attacking defenders and trying to draw fouls early in the possession. With that not working, the Bucks had a number of turnovers on live plays, allowing the Cavaliers to run out to a massive early lead.
In Orlando, Lillard and Middleton fell into the same bad habits in the second quarter. The ball stopped moving and both players continued to try to attack Magic forward Jonathan Isaac one-on-one on the switch.
Even after Isaac rejected the ball on the first part of the possession, Lillard tried it again once he got the ball back from Middleton. Things didn't go any better.
There will be times when Lillard and Middleton will need to score in isolated situations. There will be times when trying to record solo is the right decision. But both players need to avoid doing too much of that to make sure the offense keeps moving forward, their teammates stay engaged, and they continue to give themselves advantages over defenders.
“If we have an open shot, take it, shoot it, shoot it, lady, Khris. But chances are (Pacers coach Rick) Carlisle is not going to let us get open shots in Game 1,” Connaughton said. “So, (we need to) ) to make sure we get to the second action and use our basketball IQ to understand what this second action is for. Obviously we want to be aggressive with it, we want to score a goal, but if you can get a third down, it's going to be a lot more difficult to defend.
Without Antetokounmpo, the Bucks' performance will likely fall somewhere between the best and worst moments of an offense led by Lillard and Middleton. In those situations, they'll have to remember to find a second action.
“I think for us, we've got to make sure that we're strategic and thoughtful in our moves on who's where and then understanding how to read the game on who's where,” Connaughton said. “If you have a pick-and-roll with Dame and Brock, and Brock rolls over and hits Dame on the next side, is it Chris in that corner? Or is Khris on the other side, on the strong side, where you move him to the corner and back to the other side, and he's off A little bit of dribbling?
“Being a little better with these things and a little more determined is what we worked on this week.”
Since the Bucks lost to the Magic and showed some of their worst offensive habits without Antetokounmpo, they've worked to avoid that kind of thing against the Pacers. They had a week to dig it up. It's time to see if they've learned their lesson.
(Photo of Damian Lillard and Khris Middleton: Melissa Tamez/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
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