Milwaukee Bucks: Absurd home dominance likely to be lost in season resumption
By Adam McGee
If the NBA season resumes in a bubble environment on a neutral site, the Milwaukee Bucks will miss out on the advantage of their incredible level of dominance at home.
It’s no secret that any prospect of the NBA season resuming at this point would require some form of quarantined bubble environment, with games taking place at neutral venues. That’s why there’s been so much conversation about the viability of Disney World or Las Vegas as potential hosts of late.
But what would such a scenario mean for the league-leading Milwaukee Bucks, and what was their incredibly strong title case before coronavirus brought the season to a grinding halt?
More from Bucks News
- Bucks 2023-24 player profile: Can MarJon Beauchamp take a leap?
- Piecing together the Milwaukee Bucks’ dream starting 5 in 5 years
- Predicting Thanasis Antetokounmpo’s 2023-24 stats for the Bucks
- Grade the trade: Bucks land reputable backup guard in swap with Pacers
- New workout video should have Milwaukee Bucks fans excited
Our own Brennan Olin did a fantastic job of exploring one angle of that particular hypothetical last week, highlighting how that scenario may actually play to the Bucks’ benefit given how formidable they’ve been on the road this season.
The truth is the Bucks are incredibly good, and will have an excellent chance to win games regardless of the setting.
Still, there’s an element to the Bucks’ home play that does deserve further examination, as quite simply they have been absurdly, almost comically, dominant at Fiserv Forum in the current campaign.
Their 28-3 record in Milwaukee, which is second only to the Philadelphia 76ers’ home record this season, certainly captures the basic sense of the Bucks’ strength at home, but there’s more beyond that.
The Bucks haven’t so much been winning home games as they have been absolutely bludgeoning visiting teams.
For context, the 76ers have beaten their opponents by an average margin of 10.4 points at home, which points to an outstanding level of comfort en route to losing just two home games in the current season.
The Bucks, on the other hand, step even more firmly down on their opponents’ necks. Milwaukee has an average margin of victory of 14.7 points in home games this season.
To look to the great NBA teams of the past decade, The Big 3 Miami Heat’s best average margin of victory at home topped out at 10.9 in the lockout shortened 2011-12 season, while the incredible Golden State Warriors of recent seasons only managed to surpass the Bucks’ home dominance on one occasion.
The fact that arrived in 2016-17, in Kevin Durant‘s first season in the Bay Area, speaks for just how dominant a team needs to be to come close to those numbers. In that campaign, the Warriors went 36-5 at home, and finished with an averaged margin of victory of 16 points.
If the regular season had been permitted to finish as usual, the Bucks may well have challenged both of those Warriors’ home marks.
Instead, the NBA is preparing for something entirely different in a scenario where home court advantage will ultimately mean nothing.
Next. Second training camp would only be beneficial. dark
It’s absolutely true that the Bucks’ stellar road play leaves them better prepared for that reality than most, but it also shouldn’t be overlooked that it represents a major let-off for opposing teams who the odds suggest would have been blown out in Fiserv Forum otherwise.