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Eric WoodyardESPN
The top of the standings is where the Milwaukee Bucks finished at the end of the last two regular seasons in the Eastern Conference.
However, for the first five games of the 2020-2021 campaign, the Bucks are off to a slow start at 2-3. Like last season, the Bucks alternated wins and losses across five games. But the Bucks were 3-2 before finally going on an 18-game winning streak. This season, Milwaukee is below .500 in five games for the first time since 2015-2016, the last time the team missed the playoffs.
The Miami Heat avenged Milwaukee’s most recent loss on Wednesday, winning 119-108 without All-Star Jimmy Butler (sprained right ankle), after the Bucks set them on fire Tuesday for 47 points while setting the record for the NBA with the most triples in a single game with 29.
As a new addition to the organization, point guard Jrue Holiday’s first five games have produced a variety of different endings.
Milwaukee has won two blowouts, beating Miami and the Golden State Warriors at Christmas.
In Game 1, they lost to a Jayson Tatum dagger, followed by a crucial missed free throw from current MVP and Defensive Player of the Year Giannis Antetokounmpo on the road against the Boston Celtics.
The Bucks followed up the Christmas beating of the Warriors with a poor road loss to the New York Knicks last Sunday. Now, the Bucks are coming off a loss to the Heat in a game they led by 14 points in the second half; One of Milwaukee’s losses to the Heat in the playoffs came in Game 3, when the Heat won despite a 14-point deficit in the second half.
Still, even with all these early examples, we don’t know who these current Bucks are. They’re still trying to mix in new pieces after their recent postseason outings in the Eastern Conference Finals and Eastern Conference semifinals with center Bobby Portis, guard Bryn Forbes, forward Torrey Craig and point guard DJ Augustin.
“I can speak for my team and myself. I really feel that having this different variety of teams and games really helps us. You can see a lot of different things early on,” said Holiday, who finished with 13 points on 4 shots of 15 in the loss of the Wednesday in Miami.
“Even having a back-to-back in a playoff-like atmosphere, early, is very, very good for us, so just being able to grow from this, go back and watch movies and see the things we did wrong, But more importantly, it will be the teams that can grow quickly and quickly together and start this all over again, “he continued.
Leader of the pack
On a night when Giannis Antetokounmpo racked up the 19th triple-double of his career, finishing with 26 points, 13 rebounds, 10 assists and three steals, it wasn’t enough in Miami on Wednesday.
Antetokounmpo has made it clear that he will continue to lead by example. But is that the best approach?
“I’m not patient. I’m just going to give 100 percent on defense,” Antetokounmpo said after the loss. “I try to play the right way on offense. I try to play hard. I don’t try to save energy. I save energy after the game.”
An example of this was when Bucks players were in and out of the practice facility on Sunday, December 20, for individual practice.
Less than a week before the first game of the regular season, head coach Mike Budenholzer noticed his superstar player, drenched in sweat in the middle of an intense session.
“Giannis, this is enough, you’ve been here an hour and a half,” Budenholzer told Antetokounmpo. “You have to go home.”
Even after signing a new contract and picking up a second MVP trophy, Antetokounmpo told himself “it’s about now.”
The Bucks were preparing to open the season on the road in Boston before returning home to play the Warriors on Christmas Day.
“I know you can have the mentality of ‘Okay, save some for tomorrow.’ No, you don’t. You work as hard as you can today. Same with the regular season. We’re going as hard as we can in the regular season. “Antetokounmpo explained. “We’re not saying in Game 1 like it’s Game 1, we’re not going to say, ‘Oh, we’re not going to give too much because we’re worried about the playoffs.’ We may not be in the playoffs if we don’t play hard. It’s not guaranteed “.
Antetokounmpo is still looking for a rhythm during these early games, with his opening averages below 29.5 points and 13.6 rebounds, the best of his career last year, at 22.4 points and 11.6 rebounds per game this year. His free throws are also down to 62.2 percent.
However, everyone is confident that he will be fine.
Consistency is key
The Bucks have shown they can blow teams up. The small sample size still shows a strong team, even compared to last season:
Comparing the Bucks across five games to last season
2019-2020 | 2020-2021
WL: 56-17 | 2-3
Offensive rating: 111.9 | 119.7
Defensive rating: 102.5 | 109.7
Def. bounce pct: 77.5 | 75.4
The problem is that Milwaukee has also had mixed performances. Not just game by game, but room by room.
This consecutive series was the first games between the Bucks and Heat since Miami eliminated Milwaukee in the postseason bubble. It’s all part of the process of learning how to close games, according to the Milwaukee leader.
“It’s about games … playing more games together. Right now, we are solving each other,” Antetokounmpo said.
As a team, the Bucks shot 39.2 percent from the field Wednesday, with All-Star forward Khris Middleton cooling off with eight points on 3-of-15 shooting after a strong individual start to the year.
After the Bucks took a 72-58 lead with eight minutes remaining in the third quarter, they were outscored 39-36 as a team by the Heat trio of Tyler Herro, Avery Bradley and Goran Dragic for the remainder of the game. The Bucks made only 31.7 percent of their last 41 shots in the final 20 minutes of the game, with Middleton and Holiday combining to go 0-for-11 from the field.
It ended up being a 29-point turnaround at one point in the second half. Inside the locker room, the guys know what they have to fix to head to the track, although it hasn’t been as clear to outsiders looking inward.
“We need to be more consistent. We need to be better, but I think there are positives where we play well over great periods of games and we have to extend them,” Budenholzer said. “We have to be better for more than 48 (minutes) and that’s what it takes.”
