Following the Milwaukee Bucks’ 130-115 wire-to-wire win over the Sacramento Kings on Tuesday, Brook Lopez tried to speak it into existence.
“New York was hopefully an aberration,” Lopez said of his team losing by 34 points to the New York Knicks on Sunday.
While the Bucks couldn’t pull off a wire-to-wire win on Wednesday or match their highest-scoring output (130 vs. Sacramento) of the season, they did dominate the Orlando Magic in a 122-93 victory on the second night of a back-to-back. The win featured the Bucks’ largest margin of victory (29) and their lowest-scoring first quarter from an opponent (16) this season.
On Wednesday, the Bucks built their big early lead with defense. On Tuesday, they did it with their offense and their highest-scoring quarter (47 points in the first quarter) of the season. But no matter how they built a big lead in the first 12 minutes, each game featured the Bucks going up by double digits early and never letting their opponent within single digits the rest of the game.
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In consecutive games, the Bucks turned in complete 48-minute performances, something they have struggled to do all season. This was the exact progress Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard told reporters they wanted to see from their team in response to the disappointing effort in New York.
“We gotta consistently compete,” Antetokounmpo said Tuesday. “That’s the only thing that’s missing from this team, and we just gotta figure out a way to do it.”
Lillard agreed with that assessment.
“I think the No. 1 thing is just governing ourselves,” Lillard said after the win against the Kings. “Our coaches are always the ones saying something, and I think, for our team, it’s time for us to get on each other’s a—-. The ups and downs, you know, we’re too good of a team for it.
“We see what it looks like when we do these things and when we don’t. I think it’s just reached a point where we gotta address each other however we need to just be like, you know, enough is enough. We know what’s right, and we know what’s wrong.”
The Bucks (22-17) have now won five of their last six and sit five games over .500 for the first time this season. They have a chance to stack up wins with two lottery teams — the Toronto Raptors on Friday and the Philadelphia 76ers on Sunday — headed to Fiserv Forum this weekend. At times this season, the Bucks have failed to bring the requisite level of effort and focus in games against teams near the bottom of the standings. This weekend will be a good test for their self-governance efforts.
To get a better idea of what happened in this back-to-back, let’s play some Ones and take an in-depth look at the micro and macro trends that have affected the Bucks during the last week.
One Play: Giannis’ short rolling
All season, Antetokounmpo and Lillard have talked about how much more comfortable they are working with each other in the two-man game. While the general idea of a pick-and-roll can be simple, the correct reads the Bucks’ superstar duo needs to make for success can be complex.
Lillard repeatedly found Antetokounmpo on an empty side pick-and-roll that allowed the two-time MVP forward to roll at full speed toward the rim and close out a 109-106 win over the Orlando Magic last Friday. With the Magic opting to put their bigs in drop coverage against the pick-and-roll, Lillard needed to attack the big man before dropping it off to Antetokounmpo, who then raced to the rim.
On Tuesday, the Kings used a much more aggressive pick-and-roll defense and forced Lillard to deal with regular traps and blitzes as he came off the screen from Antetokounmpo. That coverage called for a different read.
Enter Antetokounmpo in the short roll.
Rather than sprinting toward the rim to finish before his defender could recover to contest the shot, Antetokounmpo rolled slowly and stopped himself short as he saw the backside defender (DeMar DeRozan) had already rotated and was waiting for him at the basket. Reading that defender, Antetokounmpo caught the ball and quickly whipped a pass to Taurean Prince in the left corner for an easy catch-and-shoot 3.
“It was a little bit different tonight because they were blitzing (Lillard) and I had time and space to make plays,” Antetokounmpo said after recording his 50th career triple-double in the win. “Usually the guys are in drop or maybe in high drop, so it’s kind of harder, but today they were committing so early, He was giving me the ball, and I had time to make a play.
“And guys knew that they had to work the dunker or spread the floor and be ready to shoot in the corners.”
With a slightly different setup a few minutes later, Antetokounmpo and Lillard once again entered into their two-man game in the middle of the floor. This time, Antetokounmpo made a counter move based on his pass to Prince:
Antetokounmpo read the defender, but with Kevin Huerter ready to sprint to the perimeter if Antetokounmpo fired a quick pass there, Antetokounmpo looked at Prince on the catch and then Euro-stepped his way to the rim.
It was a pretty bit of playmaking, but something that only becomes possible with multiple reps going against the same defensive coverage. For the two-man game between Antetokounmpo and Lillard to flourish, Bucks coach Doc Rivers will need to continue getting them more looks against more defensive coverages.
One player: Brook Lopez
On Wednesday, the Bucks shot 58.3 percent from 3, but it had very little to do with their blowout win because they took only 12 of them, the fewest 3-point attempts from any NBA team this season. Per Basketball-Reference’s Stathead tool, it was just the ninth time a team has attempted fewer than 15 3-point attempts in a game in the last four and a half seasons.
The Magic made it a priority to sell out at the 3-point line, so the Bucks responded by driving against their aggressive closeouts and getting into the paint. Even Lopez was making plays off the bounce as the Magic sprinted out to the 3-point line against him.
“It’s the old adage: You drive to score or you drive to get 3s,” Rivers said. “And today, our drives, we were scoring on. Even I was surprised. I think late in the third (quarter), we had seven 3-point attempts. I think this is the lowest 3-point attempts of anybody in the NBA this season. But yet we still scored 122 points, which means you have to shoot 60 percent to do that.“
During this home back-to-back, Lopez averaged 17 points per game, exceeding his season per-game scoring average (12.3 points) as he made five 2-point shots in each of the last two games. While the Bucks have largely used Lopez as a 3-point shooter during his seven seasons in Milwaukee, the last two games have been a reminder of the touch Lopez has always had inside the 3-point line and the counters the Bucks can make against aggressive defenses.
Point Brook with the driving and-one! pic.twitter.com/c9npGdFkUL
— Milwaukee Bucks (@Bucks) January 15, 2025
“Listen, they were trapping, so he had to roll,” Rivers said Tuesday. “And I tell you that one layup, the and-1, it was lumbering, but it was powerful because the guy was trying to foul him and he still got it up. It just tells you how strong (he is). That was Brooklyn Brook, for sure.”
One trend: Pace
This version of the Bucks will never be one of the league’s faster-paced teams. While Antetokounmpo may be the greatest transition force in NBA history, the rest of the roster is a bit older and more likely to excel in a half-court setting, so the Bucks will always end up closer to the middle in pace as it is traditionally measured. They currently rank as the 11th fastest-paced team, per NBA.com.
But that doesn’t mean the Bucks should be afraid of playing with more pace. In fact, they’re almost always in a much better position offensively when they play faster.
While some coaches will dictate to their point guards that the ball should cross half court with a certain amount of time on the shot clock or the team should be entering into a possession’s first action after a specific time, Rivers told reporters he does not put those rules on his point guards. Instead, he focuses on how the team is moving the ball and players around the floor.
Rivers may not be thinking about a certain time, but Lillard revealed he’s been focused on getting the ball across half court in four seconds or fewer over the last two weeks.
“When I’m watching film with my trainer, he’s just paying attention to the trends of what I’m doing when I’m playing well with things going well versus when I’m not playing well, and one of the main things is pace,” Lillard said Wednesday. “Just seeing it on film and seeing how much better my rhythm to the game is and my timing and just my movements are when I get the ball up the floor with pace, it’s good for our team, but it’s also been good for me, so I’m looking at 21 seconds, 20 seconds, where I want to be getting into the action, make or miss.”
The benefits of that pace were on full display in the opening frame against the Kings, as the Bucks scored a season-high 47 points in a quarter. Take a closer look at this highlight play from the opening 12 minutes:
The no-look pass from Antetokounmpo was a beauty, but it would not have been possible without great pace. Rather than bringing the ball up the floor slowly and carefully against full-court pressure from Keon Ellis, one of the league’s better on-ball pests, Lillard attacked Ellis and tried to make him pay for pressuring the ball for 94 feet.
Lillard forced Kings forward Keegan Murray to step above the 3-point line and get in front of him. As Murray helped, Lopez immediately cut to the basket, which forced Ellis to peel off Lillard and take Lopez, which created a massive size advantage for the Bucks. That mismatch forced Domantas Sabonis to show help on Lopez and made him late in building the wall against Antetokounmpo.
With a late closeout, Antetokounmpo immediately got into a dangerous area around the free-throw line. He hit Sabonis with a hesitation move and took one more dribble, which left the Kings in a desperate position. Knowing he didn’t have a chance at the rim with Lopez, Ellis tried to surprise Antetokounmpo, but the Bucks’ big man read it perfectly and threw a no-look pass to Lopez for the dunk.
Playing with greater pace allows Lillard to be aggressive early in possessions and opens up opportunities that are typically not there later in the shot clock. Lillard is a singular offensive talent, so teams make sure they make it difficult on him every second of the shot clock. That is more difficult to do on plays where the Bucks push the tempo.
Even if pushing the ball up the floor doesn’t result in a basket in the first five or 10 seconds of a play, it puts the Bucks in a better offensive position.
One of their biggest problems offensively this season has been stagnancy. Too often, the Bucks find themselves walking the ball up the floor and standing around while they try to call out a set that gets started with 10 seconds left on the shot clock. Taking so long to get into an offensive action gives defenses a break and allows them to need to successfully defend one action. It also makes it more difficult for the Bucks to create something good.
“You can play both sides of the floor,” Rivers said of what pushing the pace can do for the Bucks’ offense. “It takes away from that dribble-for-20-seconds-no-ball-movement-type of offense. We have two guys, on certain nights, that are good enough to get away with it, but you just know you’re not going to win in the long run playing that way.”
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(Photo of Damian Lillard: Stacy Revere / Getty Images)
