Milwaukee Bucks: Returning to routine inside the bubble

Having arrived to Orlando late last week, the Milwaukee Bucks are slowly getting back into their routine ahead of the 2019-20 NBA season restart.

They may be far away from home, but the Milwaukee Bucks are adapting to their new reality quite quickly.

Last week saw the bulk of the Bucks’ traveling party of players, coaches and officials head down to Orlando to enter the league’s bubble at Walt Disney World. Whether the novelty of living within the resort has worn off may still be too early to tell at this point, but the Bucks are getting back down to business after such a lengthy layoff.

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As such, Monday saw the Bucks take part in their first 5-on-5 practice after having just been limited to individual workouts both in Milwaukee and over the weekend in Orlando following quarantine.

It’s certainly been a long time coming for the Bucks to get to this point and while Bucks head coach Mike Budenholzer pointed out that the players are far from peak game shape, it was a huge step in this surreal process as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Ben Steele relayed:

"“I think anytime you’re playing five-on-five for the first time there is a tiny bit of rust,” Budenholzer said. “But overall I was really pleased with the guys and how they played. The way they played. So I think overall it was a real positive.“To say that they’re ready to go play a 48-minute game would be a stretch. But it was a good start.”"

Bucks All-Star swingman Khris Middleton agreed with his coach and while two-and-a-half weeks stand between now and the restart of their 53-12 season, Middleton is aware the Bucks’ recalibration is no different than to what every other team in Orlando is going through:

"“It feels good,” Middleton said. “Of course, the first couple times (at practice) we were a little rusty. Which I’m sure everybody was. Being back in the gym feels great. We’re working hard every day to get to where we want to be.“So I don’t think that time frame is really going to hold us back. Right now we’re playing hard, practicing hard, encouraging each other, making each other better. Everybody’s going through the same thing. It’s going to be the strongest (team) to come out of this.”"

Considering the events of the last four months, the mental and physical strength that Middleton is certainly to will be the basis of any success the Bucks will look to achieve while in Orlando.

How everything is set up, though, couldn’t be further from how a normal NBA champion would be crowned as the league looks to do so under different circumstances with this restart. Respectively, the bubble environment, being among the very teams who are looking to challenge the Bucks’ title ambitions, and being away from family for an extended period all present their own challenges as we’re getting used to seeing from afar.

Yet, it all won’t dissuade Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo, a known creature of habit, from rolling with his regular routine that he’s crafted over his basketball journey and how he will carry himself in Orlando as he told the following to Eric Woodyard of ESPN:

"“At the end of the day, we’ve got to go out there and play,” Antetokounmpo said. “I’m not going to try to not be myself. I never wear headphones; I don’t listen to music before games or before practice because it brings a lot of emotions to basketball. I feel like basketball should be played with no emotions, so I’m just going to try to be myself.“I had the national team coach when I was 17, he told me that ‘whenever you’re around in a place with a lot of players, you’ve just got to be yourself, keep to yourself, look them straight in their eyes and just give them a nod. Say hello, but be you.’ I’m not going to try to change who I am, but obviously if we can be here for three months, my goal is to be a better basketball player and a better person leaving this place.”"

Next. Revisiting Giannis Antetokounmpo’s 2019-20 season so far. dark

Soon enough, the games will get underway and just as the Bucks’ players will get back into finishing the job they started at the start of the season, so will we get used to seeing the highs and lows of live basketball being played again. But the little steps that the Bucks and the NBA as a whole pass along the way are certainly worth commemorating, given these unprecedented times.

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