Righting what went wrong
The Bucks’ gutsy comeback throughout the second half, and especially throughout the fourth quarter, became the ultimate takeaway from their regular season opening win last time out.
But it shouldn’t entirely mask just how miserable their performance was early on and for much of the first half. That was obviously due to the foul trouble that limited both Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo as well as Eric Bledsoe, which only exacerbated their early woes amid the Rockets’ fast start.
With the Bucks knocked on the back foot early on, Bucks head coach Mike Budenholzer went deep into their bench to conjure up some formula for success and that led to 11 Bucks players seeing the floor for the night, and 10 of those contributors saw more than 15 minutes of action over the course of the night, respectively.
Fortunately, that eventually paid off for Budenholzer and the Bucks against the Rockets, but it makes drawing any early impressions for how the team’s rotation may look like a near-futile exercise from our vantage point.
Now whether the Bucks can rewrite the script against the Heat remains to be seen, but in the event that they do, we’ll probably get a clearer picture of how the Bucks will look to operate in terms of their rotation as well as assuming the dominating mentality that became a staple in Milwaukee last season.