1. The Bucks finished their first major road trip of the season with a record of 3-1. Were you impressed by what they showed on this Western Conference trip?
Dan Larsen (@DanLarsen34): For all of the concerns we had about this team after their first handful of games, they’ve rebounded quite nicely. The offense has been a lot more fluid. They’ve got a high level of play, in particular, out of their guards spots on that end, including from Eric Bledsoe, who had looked shaky in those opening games. So long as they continue to balance their attacking the rim better with outside shooting, they should be an extremely difficult team to stop in the half court.
Defensively, this team had some fantastic performances on the road trip too. They’ve done an excellent job of controlling the paint, which was so crucial to their success a season ago. They’re making teams work on most possessions to get good looks as well. They’re not conceding as many open shots as they were in some of their opening games.
The one thing they need to clean up, though, is the careless mistakes they continue to make on both ends of the floor. There have still been far too many lazy passes and brain-dead moments that have left the door open in games that should have been settled. The Bucks’ inability to close games because of their own mis-haps is something that needs to be addressed, but should be easily corrected.
Ben Rauman (@BenRauman): I was very impressed by their road trip, especially coming off that great win on the second night of a back-to-back against Toronto at home. The Bucks’ net rating has gotten back to around where we expected it to be after a slow start and is currently at +7.6 for the season, good for second behind the Boston Celtics (yeah, just as we all expected).
Perhaps most importantly, they’ve maintained consistency despite playing on the road which is important if they are to carry over last season’s regular season dominance. Additionally, going 2-1 in games decided by five points or less on this trip is a nice testament to their ability to win close games, especially when that one loss came in a game in which Giannis had fouled out.
Logan Beatty (@Logeyj): I was pretty impressed!
Any time you have to swing out West for a -fourgame trip, anything .500 or above is a good thing. It was a little concerning that both L.A. and Utah (!?) nightlife got to Middleton. He was a ghastly 11-of-35 from the field in those games combined, and looked out of sync. Outside of Middleton though, the rest of the squad looked really good. Giannis was an eater of worlds and became the first Milwaukee Buck since Marques Johnson to have 30 points in five straight games, Bledsoe has been good Bledsoe, and we finally got a sneak peek at Sterling Brown with extended minutes. It’s going to be exciting to see if he gets more run now that we can expect Middleton to miss an extended period of time.
Jordan Treske (@JordanTreske): It’s certainly hard not to be, even with a couple of caveats such as both the Clippers and Thunder being short on key pieces like Kawhi Leonard and Steven Adams, respectively.
But that doesn’t take away from the overall progress the Bucks showed over this road trip, especially after a rocky first week in the season. Giannis has certainly gotten out of third gear over the last five-to-six games or so and so has Eric Bledsoe, who will be even more crucial to the Bucks with the news of Khris Middleton’s injury. The fact that the Bucks have started to resemble the form they took on throughout last year, even with notable contributors struggling like Brook Lopez and Wesley Matthews, is pretty remarkable in its own right.
And we shouldn’t overlook the fact that the Bucks have had the second hardest strength of schedule to start the year 10 games in.
Adam McGee (@AdamMcGee11): I wasn’t wowed by any means, but I’d certainly say quietly impressed. A team of the Bucks’ caliber needed to go at least 3-1 on a trip such as that to meet expectations, and the fact is they could easily have completed that stretch at 4-0. Based on some of the shakier performances to open the year too, simply closing wins, even if not all that convincingly at times, is important too.