Milwaukee Bucks: 5 stats that stand out from their seeding games

5 stats that stand out from the Milwaukee Bucks’ seeding games – Brook’s 24.8 usage percentage

Whether it was by design or a result of the many absences and injuries the Bucks had to deal with over the last two weeks, the Bucks’ seeding games featured plenty of Brook Lopez.

And over his 195 total minutes, the second-most of any Bucks player, Lopez showed off his much improved offensive game and his long range sharpshooting. I went into greater detail on Lopez’s offensive turnaround midway through last week, but finishing as the Bucks’ second-leading scorer with 20.4 points per game while shooting 43.9 percent from three and a 62.9 true shooting percentage was nothing short of monumental for Lopez and the Bucks overall.

But perhaps the most meaningful number to gleam from Lopez’s performances is the 24.8 usage percentage mark he tallied over the last two weeks, the fourth-highest number of any Bucks player. That’s quite the jump from the 17.1 usage percentage mark Lopez posted before the season suspension.

Now it’s fair to assume that number was inflated due to games without Giannis Antetokounmpo, and the Bucks and Budenholzer electing to take it easy when it came to ramping up Eric Bledsoe’s minutes workload following his COVID-19 case.

Still, the Bucks have leaned on Lopez at critical times throughout the season and Bucks players and coaches have viewed him as a fail-safe option for when the Bucks play a more structured-styled offense and he’s able to feast on mismatches.

But the fact that Lopez has looked as good as he has scoring the ball from all three levels of the floor may force Budenholzer and his staff to lean further on Lopez throughout their playoff run. Needing that consistent third scorer that Lopez has proven to be over his Bucks stint only puts less pressure on the likes of Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton to lead the Bucks’ offense and Bledsoe’s playoff struggles always stands as a cause for concern.