Bucks' unconventional starting lineup may be causing defensive issues: 3 observations

New York Times

14-03-2025

With the 2024-25 season winding down, the Milwaukee Bucks find themselves in a hotly contested three-team battle for the Eastern Conference's fourth spot. As of Friday morning, the Bucks are fourth with a 37-28 record after a 126-106 win over the Los Angeles Lakers on Thursday night.
However, the Indiana Pacers, who the Bucks play on Saturday night in Fiserv Forum, are only a half game back at 36-28 and the Detroit Pistons (37-30) trail the Bucks by one game in the standings. Saturday's contest will be the last head-to-head matchup for the Bucks and Pacers, but the Bucks and Pistons finish their respective seasons with contests against each other on Apr. 11 and 13.
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Before the Bucks try to create a little space between themselves and their two Central Division opponents in the Eastern Conference playoff standings with a weekend back-to-back against the Pacers and Oklahoma City Thunder, let's play some Ones for an in-depth look at the micro and macro trends that have affected the Bucks in the last week.
Backup point guard Kevin Porter Jr. was essential to the Bucks' win on Thursday. Coming off the bench, Porter hit 5-of-7 3-point attempts and added seven free throws for a 22-point outing in only 17 minutes. His boost was essential to the Bucks' balanced scoring effort and a bit of a throwback performance for Porter.
Thursday's game was the first time Porter had made five or more 3-pointers since Apr. 4, 2023 when he was with the Houston Rockets. With the Los Angeles Clippers, Porter did not shoot a lot of 3s, but the 24-year-old guard told reporters after Thursday's game the Bucks have encouraged him to get back to shooting 3s as he did in Houston when he shot more than six 3s per game for three straight seasons.
But while Porter was spectacular on Thursday, he has struggled with turnovers since coming to Milwaukee.
In 225 minutes across 14 games with the Bucks, Porter has 9.8 points, 2.9 rebounds and 3.1 assists in 16.1 minutes per game, but he's also averaging two turnovers per game. His rate of 4.5 turnovers per 36 minutes with the Bucks is a figure that can only be matched by four other players (Trae Young, James Harden, Cade Cunningham, Ja Morant) who have played at least 100 minutes on the season.
'That's non-negotiable,' Bucks coach Doc Rivers said. 'Especially late in the season, you just can't turn the ball over. He knows that, but he's still doing it right now. But we still want him to be aggressive.'
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To Porter's credit, he admitted the issue following Thursday's game and told reporters how he's planning to work on it moving forward.
'I just gotta stay aggressive,' Porter said. 'The last couple games, a lot of my turnovers have been a forced entry pass or little things that it's an easy fix. As long as I stay aggressive, drive and kick and be ready to shoot those catch-and-shoot (3s), those turnovers will handle themselves.'
As they lifted weights together at the Target Center before the team's final game before the All-Star break, Damian Lillard had a question for one of his new teammates. They had already spent three games and five days together, so Lillard felt comfortable being somewhat blunt.
'Man, do you ever talk?' Lillard recalled asking.
Jericho Sims, the big man the Bucks acquired from the New York Knicks at the trade deadline, smiled and gave a quick response.
'Yeah, I do,' Sims responded, according to Lillard.
Noting that calling him all three syllables of his first name on the court wouldn't work, Lillard asked his new teammate if there were any other names he liked to be called. Sims told Lillard that people call him 'J-Rock' or 'Jumpman' and that allowed Lillard to make another joke.
'I will never call you Jumpman,' Lillard told Sims with a smile. 'There is one Jumpman that I'm going to acknowledge as Jumpman.'
With the ice properly broken, the conversation continued. Lillard and the rest of Sims' teammates have gotten to know the 26-year-old big man better off the floor over the last month. Bobby Portis' suspension has allowed them to get to know Sims much better on the floor as well. Sims has appeared in all 12 games out of the All-Star break after not appearing in the Bucks' first four games following the trade.
While he might be a quiet guy off the floor, the plays made by Sims on the floor tend to be plenty loud.
DAME TO JERICHO FOR ANOTHER OOP.
Giannis' reaction is all of us. pic.twitter.com/zB9Z0Ls14Z
— Milwaukee Bucks (@Bucks) March 14, 2025
Sims provides a different look for the Bucks than the rest of their big-man rotation. With Giannis Antetokounmpo serving as one of the Bucks' key playmakers over the last decade, the organization has prioritized getting big men who can shoot the 3 and spread the floor for their unicorn big man who regularly brings the ball up the floor and Euro-steps around the competition.
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For the last five years, that has meant Antetokounmpo playing nearly every minute with either Brook Lopez or Portis alongside him. With Antetokounmpo handling the athleticism, the Bucks have looked for their big men to bring something else, which is why Sims has provided something so different for the last month with his shot blocking and rim-running.
While the highlights have been spectacular, the results for the team have not been as kind. In 12 games with the Bucks, Sims has averaged 2.8 points and 5.3 rebounds in 15.5 minutes per game. Per Cleaning the Glass, the Bucks have been outscored by 7.8 points per 100 possessions in the 186 minutes Sims has spent on the floor and that is largely because of what has happened offensively.
With Sims on the floor, the Bucks have been fine defensively, giving up 115.1 points per 100 possessions (49th percentile), but floundered offensively, scoring only 107.2 points per 100 possessions (13th percentile). Sims is not the offensive engine in any of the lineups, so it is tough to blame him, but his offensive skill set as a rim runner is limited mostly to catching lobs and that can lead to cramped spacing and a crowded floor for playmakers.
That has left Rivers hesitant to pair Sims with Antetokounmpo. In only 54 possessions together, lineups featuring Antetokounmpo and Sims have a net rating of plus-5.6 points per 100 possessions, but it's been clear why that lineup has the potential for great success and exceptional failure. On defense, units featuring Antetokounmpo and Sims have surrendered only 100 points per 100 possessions, a defensive rating in the 100th percentile on the season. On offense though, the Bucks have scored just 105.6 points per 100 possessions, an offensive rating in the eighth percentile.
Watch Cavaliers big man Evan Mobley on this possession:
Mobley was 'guarding' Sims, but paid the rim-running big man little attention. He spent the entire possession with his eyes focused on Antetokounmpo and put himself in position to be in the lane, waiting on Antetokounmpo at the rim.
If the Bucks spent more time on an offensive package with Sims on the floor with Antetokounmpo, they might be able to find some creative ways to take advantage of how defenders might ignore Sims to help on the two-time MVP. However, that base defense from the Cavaliers shows why the Bucks have always preferred the spacing provided by stretch bigs around Antetokounmpo.
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Coming out of the All-Star break, the Bucks won six of their first seven games. They won three games on the road and beat both the Los Angeles Clippers and Denver Nuggets at home for two of their better wins of the season and they did so using an unconventional starting lineup of Lillard, Taurean Prince, Kyle Kuzma, Antetokounmpo and Lopez.
That starting lineup does not feature a traditional shooting guard and features three players (Prince, Kuzma, Antetokounmpo) who have been described as power forwards during various points of their careers, but it has been successful thus far. In 334 possessions, that lineup has posted a plus-9.6 net rating with a 118.3 offensive rating (77th percentile) and a 108.8 defensive rating (91st percentile).
With an unusually sized lineup though, Rivers has been forced to go with nontraditional defensive matchups with Prince often getting matched up with the opponent's top perimeter scoring option to start games and Kuzma sometimes getting the responsibility in the second half or earlier than that on switches.
While it is not traditional, it has worked for the Bucks. That success has been most surprising on the defensive end where the Bucks just don't have normal matchups, but have been surviving in one-on-one moments like this:
So, is it sustainable to continue to have Prince and Kuzma defend elite guards in the postseason?
'Yeah, absolutely, because they have the size behind them,' Rivers said on Mar. 7. 'If you can guard Kyrie (Irving) for the last five minutes of a game or Tyler Herro for the last five, why wouldn't that be sustainable? We just wouldn't do it with Kuz for 48 minutes. We don't want him to. We have enough guards that we can keep changing the matchups.'
The last week has provided a tougher test for Rivers' faith in his non-traditional defenders getting the job done against top perimeter threats.
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Even though the Lakers were too shorthanded to cause real problems on Thursday, Luka Doncic scored 45 points with relative ease. On Tuesday, Tyrese Haliburton regularly broke the Bucks down off the dribble and created open 3s for his teammates, but the Pacers just missed those open shots.
Far too often, this was the type of shot the Bucks surrendered against the Pacers:
'I didn't think we controlled the ball,' Rivers said of the Bucks' poor defense against the Pacers. 'I think they had nine or 11 3s with 10 feet of distance (between the shooter and closest defender) and that can't happen obviously.'
'Driving away from our help, which we have to channel everything to our help, and we just haven't done that. We've done a great job of that over the last six, eight weeks and the last three games in a row, we've not done it and so we showed that on film.'
Even on the possessions where the Bucks managed to get the ballhandler to dribble into the Bucks' waiting help defenders, the rest of the rotations were so poorly executed that the Pacers still got open shots on Tuesday.
The Bucks are going to get another chance at the Pacers on Saturday. They will need to be much better at the point of attack defensively. Indiana is among the NBA's best attacking teams and Haliburton is spectacular at finding the weak spots in a defense, so this will be another strong test for the viability of the Bucks' unorthodox defensive personnel in the postseason.
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(Photo of Austin Reaves and Taurean Prince: Stacy Revere / Getty Images)