Milwaukee Bucks: Defensive rebounding nearing historic production

For the second straight year, the Milwaukee Bucks lead the charge in crashing the defensive glass. Only this season, they’re tracking to become one of the most productive rebounding teams in league history.

The Milwaukee Bucks continue to refine their blueprint for success this 2019-20 season.

With just one win left to guarantee a season that will be .500 or better 46 games into the campaign, the Bucks have taken full flight over the rest of the NBA as the season moves along. And they continue to chase history on all sorts of fronts, however big or small.

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At the moment, that includes their ridiculous rebounding output on the defensive glass.

Since the arrival of Bucks head coach Mike Budenholzer, the Bucks have emphasized crashing the glass defensively and winning the possession battle to tilt the scales in their favor.

In combination with their drop-back defensive scheme that sees the likes of the Lopez brothers patrolling the paint and superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo effectively roaming around to further protect their rim, the Bucks’ strong rebounding prowess can be attributed to their strategy and the personnel on their roster.

That obviously spurred the Bucks’ incredible turnaround last season where they went from being the worst defensive rebounding team during the 2017-18 campaign to being the second-best squad by defensive rebounding percentage where they trailed the Utah Jazz, per NBA.com/stats.

This season, Milwaukee hasn’t taken as gigantic of a leap on that front, but their ability to endlessly corral misses from opposing teams continues to be a steady trend in their standing as the league’s best defensive team by defensive efficiency for the second straight year.

By counting stats, the Bucks are the leading defensive rebounding team for the second straight year and once again, by a significant margin as they snag 42.2 defensive rebounds per game. Per Basketball-Reference.com, that would be a league record, which was set by last year’s Bucks team, who pulled down 40.4 defensive rebounds per game.

Along with that, Milwaukee has accrued a league-leading 77.1 defensive rebounding percentage. As it stands, only the 2016-17 Detroit Pistons have collected a higher defensive rebounding percentage than this year’s Bucks team throughout the years the NBA has collected such data.

Through Budenholzer, the Bucks’ fundamental leanings permeate through every aspect of their play across both sides of the ball.

And while Antetokounmpo benefits the most as he’s on his way to another career year cleaning up on the glass (15.2 rebounds per 36 minutes), the Bucks as a whole have an uncanny knack of establishing position on the boards and rounding up defensive rebounds on a nightly basis, no matter the type of lineup configuration the 50-year-old rolls out there.

Of course, by way of their remarkable rebounding production, the Bucks are able to get out and run in the open floor and utilize the league-leading breakneck pace they’ve played at throughout the entire season.

Next. Transition defense starting to hold up with breakneck pace. dark

And there’s no greater way for the Bucks to establish the tone and play their game than taking care of business on the defensive glass. Whether they can set a new high mark in league history will be one storyline of many to watch throughout this latter half of the season.

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