Milwaukee Bucks: BIg Three Making the Difference

Jason Kidd‘s call to move Michael Carter-Williams and Greg Monroe to the bench is paying dividends for the Bucks big three.

The future is beginning to look a lot brighter in Milwaukee. After struggling through much of the season, the Milwaukee Bucks have begun to make some improvements on the court.

Over their past ten games, the Bucks have posted a 6-4 record. Even in their loses, the Bucks have found ways to be more competitive, working down big leads and making things interesting in games where things aren’t going their way.

Most of the improvement has come from coach Jason Kidd’s call to move Michael Carter-Williams and Greg Monroe to the bench. By removing the two from the starting line-up, the Bucks have improved in a number of areas on both sides of the ball.

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Just as important, however, has been the increased use of Giannis Antetokounmpo and Jabari Parker on the offensive end. By removing Carter-Williams and Monroe from the equation, there have been many more touches available for both Antetokounmpo and Parker. Both have taken advantage of this and the results have been encouraging.

For the first time all season, the Bucks have actually began to utilize Antetokounmpo and Parker’s biggest strengths.

First, Antetokounmpo has begun to be used as a point forward, given the bulk of the ball-handling responsibilities on the team. He’s done more than a respectable job, putting in some solid performances in recent games.

Prior to his recent run, Antetokounmpo had shown flashes of being a respectable distributor of the ball. However, the bulk of the ball-handling responsibilities were given to Carter-Williams.

For stretches of games throughout the season, Antetokounmpo would be frozen out of the offense while Carter-Williams tried to create and the results were often poor stretches on offense where the team was unable to score or create.

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With Carter-Williams and Monroe off the floor, there have been more touches to go around. As a result, Antetokounmpo has been asked to take on the role of facilitator while O.J. Mayo or Jerryd Bayless work to provide spacing off the ball.

By playing Bayless or Mayo with the starting line-up, the Bucks are able to field another player who can pose a three point threat, providing spacing for Antetokounmpo and Parker to work with around the basket.

This allows the team to put the ball in the hands of someone with solid passing skills and exceptional vision, particularly for a 21 year old.

Antetokounmpo, in a recent blog post for Eurohoops.net, talked about how he likes to work as the creator:

"Since I started working with coach Zivas in Filathlitikos, I began to realize that I can participate in many areas of the game and that perhaps, in the future there is not so much a specific position for me, as a goal to get to a point where I’m able to do everything on the court at a high level. He is the first person to believe in that and he passed it on to me, even though at the time I was completely unprepared, just a lanky kid.Even then I had a good perception of the game and I could see things on the court that others couldn’t. I believe that, what was happening then with Filathlitikos when I was playing as a playmaker, is happening in the last games of the Bucks. Of course, the level is… quite different! (laughs)."

The best example of Antetokounmpo’s creative ability came in the Bucks victory against the Houston Rockets Monday night. Antetokounmpo was constantly looking to set up his teammates, and his selflessness, particularly on the break, helped contribute to his 11 assist performance:

The Bucks offense has been much improved with Antetokounmpo handling the ball. The results haven’t been consistent, as his two assist performance against Indiana on Wednesday suggests. However, more often than not, Antetokounmpo has shown that he may actually possess the best ability to create on the current roster.

Jabari Parker has also benefited from the move to bench Carter-Williams and Monroe. For much of the season, Parker operated as a fourth or fifth option on offense, getting the fewest touches in the starting five and scoring primarily on backdoor cuts or on the break.

Since the benching of Carter-Williams and Monroe, Parker has played a much bigger role in the offense, turning into the first or second scoring option on a nightly basis. He’s getting good looks and settling into a rhythm for the first time all season, and this has allowed him to find a great deal of success on the floor.

Like Antetokounmpo, Parker’s best performance came against the Houston Rockets. Just one game removed from setting a career high, Parker topped that performance by scoring a career high 36 points:

As the Houston game shows, Parker is getting a chance to handle the ball much more and create opportunities for himself and for others. With his confidence growing by the game, Parker has begun to find his step back jumper, something he hadn’t utilized much in his NBA career so far.

He’s also began to figure out that his athleticism makes him a mismatch at the power forward position. As a result, Parker is getting to the rim with much more frequency, and his success at finishing at the rim has improved as well.

By removing Carter-Williams and Monroe from the starting line-up, the Bucks have gotten both Antetokounmpo and Parker more involved. This has allowed them to play to strengths.

Mandatory Credit: Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports /

It’s also allowed both to work on their on-court chemistry. After their breakout performance on Monday, Parker said of Giannis, “That’s the kind of guy I want on my team for the rest of my career.” Antetokounmpo felt equally as optimistic, saying, “It was fun. It’s a taste from the future. I think the future is bright for us.”

Antetokounmpo and Parker haven’t been the only beneficiaries from the line-up change. Khris Middleton has also begun to find his scoring stroke on a more consistent basis.

Though he initially struggled with his shooting percentage after the line-up change, Middleton has really come on over the past five games, averaging 26.4 points per game on 55 percent shooting from the field and 58.3 percent shooting from three.

All of this was capped of by arguably his greatest performance as a Buck on Friday night.

Middleton scored 32 points against Minnesota. 24 of those points came on three-pointers. In fact, Middleton did his best Stephen Curry impression, going 8-9 from deep, coming up just two makes shy of tying Ray Allen for the team record for the most made threes in one game:

Middleton has proved time and time again this season that he can be a go to scoring option. Unlike Antetokounmpo and Parker, Middleton provides the team with the critical element of spacing.

He is among the league’s best threats from three, especially when he catches fire like he did Friday night, and this allows the Bucks to add another dimension that they would otherwise lack without him.

Though the sample size is still relatively small, the benching of Carter-Williams and Monroe has allowed the Bucks to find out what they have in their best three players. As the results suggest, the Bucks could realistically become a top five offense with a Antetokounmpo/Middleton/Parker trio as the focal point of the offense.

All three players are talented in many ways on the offensive end, and their skills uniquely complement each other.

The Bucks defense has also been improved, albeit slightly, without Carter-Williams and Monroe on the floor. As was discussed at some length before the deadline, a Monroe-Parker front court pairing doesn’t work because neither guy is an elite defender.

Monroe provides the team little in the way of rim protection, and Parker is still very raw on defense, particularly when he’s asked to rotate or pick up the ball-handler in a pick and roll situation. With both on the floor, the Bucks aren’t able to execute their defensive scheme with any sort of consistency.

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Since Plumlee has been inserted into the line-up, the Bucks have been somewhat improved on the defensive end. Plumlee is not an elite rim-protector either.

However, he has a much better feel for defending than Monroe does. This has allowed the Bucks to operate a bit more smoothly on defense, though they still have a long way to go before becoming a top 15 team on the defensive end.

With a few tweaks to the line-up over the coming seasons, the Bucks should be able to field a very competitive team in the East with their big three.

Next: Prospect Watch: Ben Simmons

Picking up wins for the rest of this season does not really matter. What matters is that the Bucks big three continue to grow and improve.

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Milwaukee Bucks: Big Three are Making the Difference

By Dan Larsen | Mar 6, 2016

Jason Kidd‘s call to move Michael Carter-Williams and Greg Monroe to the bench is paying dividends for the Bucks big three.

More from Behind the Buck Pass