Milwaukee Bucks: Digging into the Bucks’ early season distribution
The Milwaukee Bucks’ offensive awakening has headlined their first week-plus of action so far this season and their new found emphasis of launching a high volume from three has only started to unlock their deferential play to this point.
Between their undefeated start through their first four games and the early season performances of some of their cornerstone players, the start to the 2018-19 NBA season has been a celebratory one for the Milwaukee Bucks thus far.
Of course, this comes off the heels of their signature win of the early going so far where they easily dispatched fellow Eastern Conference foe, the Philadelphia 76ers, Wednesday night by logging a 123-108 win in front of the faithful in Fiserv Forum.
Yes, we’re just only a week into the regular season, but the level to which the Bucks’ roster has taken to their summer retooling and overall philosophy reset under new head coach Mike Budenholzer has been exhilarating to watch as the team has gotten off to their best start to a season in 17 years.
On that front, there’s been no stylistic change that has stood out bigger than how the Bucks operate this year compared to the last few than on the offensive end, otherwise known as how they learned to stop worrying about long mid-rangers and love the three-ball.
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As if his pedigree during his days with the Atlanta Hawks wasn’t enough, Budenholzer outlined exactly what he wanted to see out of his new squad on that end during his introductory press conference following his hiring back in mid-May earlier this year:
"“Offensively, I think it’s going to be a great challenge for me and my staff. Certainly I’ve got a million ideas flying around in my head for the last three or four days about the different things we could do. But I can tell you that playing with more space, with great pace, playing faster, lots of great people and ball movement, which again are kind of core to what I believe in.”"
That’s mostly been born out in what the Bucks have offered offensively, with their three-point usage having climbed significantly with the coaching regime change. Four games in and the Bucks stand third in the league in terms of percentage of three-point attempts per game (43.6), per NBA.com/stats.
However, the one exception to all this looks to be ball movement. That may come as a surprise to some, considering just how overpowering the Bucks have been and again, the stylistic changes they’ve sported under Coach Bud.
But the Bucks rank 24th in passes made and received as they have averaged 267.8 passes in both categories through their first four games. For frame of reference, the Bucks ranked 24th last year by averaging 284.6 made passes last year under former Bucks head coaches, Jason Kidd and Joe Prunty.
The key caveat or distinction to all this is the sense of purpose the Bucks have had in creating assisted scores and just exactly where the Bucks have been generating their points off of passes from those on the floor at any given moment. Case in point, the Bucks currently rank eighth in assists per game with exactly 26 and rank fifth in assist points created with 62.8.
That latter statistic certainly goes hand in hand with the Bucks’ own personal three-point revolution under Budenholzer as 51 of the team’s 61 made three-pointers so far have been assisted. The Bucks’ percentage of assisted three-point makes (83.6 percent) currently slots them in middle of the pack at 13th.
So while we aren’t seeing the passing wizardry of say, the 2013-14 San Antonio Spurs or to the level of the Golden State Warriors, the Bucks’ revamped offensive scheme and multi-purpose lineups has led to them building a very potent offense that currently ranks seventh in the league.
As Bucks players continue to acclimate themselves to this offensive system, it will be interesting to monitor whether the level of overall ball movement and playmaking stabilizes or increases with a greater sample of play to examine.
With that said, the kind of singular talents the Bucks have in terms of shot creation, whether that’s superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton and Eric Bledsoe, we may never see the level of an all out, “ball on a string” offensive machine as compared to Budenholzer’s Hawks team during their hey day.
Next. Milwaukee Bucks: Early indications of rotation shape. dark
At any rate, the results and overall process the Bucks are utilizing offensively so far has suited them very well at this stage and with only more time to gel, it wouldn’t be all that surprising to see this level of effectiveness continue once we get into the thick of the season.