Returning to road dominance
Ten of the Bucks’ first 15 games this season have come on the road. Not only that, the Bucks have faced the second hardest strength of schedule, per ESPN’s RPI rankings.
Despite those circumstances, the Bucks have used their early season road trips to find their form and resemble the juggernaut they were for the greater part of the 2018-19 season with eight of their 12 victories coming away from Fiserv Forum. And that mark bests where the Bucks were through their first 15 games last year.
That obviously includes a recent stretch where the Bucks tallied a perfect three-game road trek with wins over the Indiana Pacers, the Chicago Bulls and the Atlanta Hawks. And as Bucks head coach Mike Budenholzer discussed with Matt Velazquez of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel following the Bucks’ win over the Hawks, the Bucks themselves feel like there’s more room to grow, even after racking up positive results.
"“We’ve talked about it a little bit with the team,” coach Mike Budenholzer said. “Everybody has stretches of their schedules that are more difficult and to come out of the gate with 10 out of 14 on the road and for this group to be able to put together what they’ve done, I think there’s a lot of positives to be taken from it. We feel like we can play a lot better, too.”"
Of course, the Bucks have also had the fortune of missing marquee stars on the road such as Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, Karl-Anthony Towns and former Bucks guard Malcolm Brogdon over their road contests.
With that said, that shouldn’t diminish the tough start they faced to open up their campaign and if not for a dreadful couple of halves against both the Boston Celtics and the Utah Jazz, the Bucks’ road performances might look even better than they already do.
With the first month of the Bucks’ season now set in stone, we’ll just have to see what trends emerge in the following few months and how they’ll impact their 2019-20 season overall.