Milwaukee Bucks: 3 key adjustments needed for the defense

Milwaukee Bucks: 3 key adjustments needed for the defense – Defense creating transition offense

The Milwaukee Bucks thrive on fastbreak offense. In 2019, the Bucks were third to the Los Angeles Lakers and Clippers in terms of transition scoring.

Once Milwaukee’s defense has a rebound or makes a steal, they can usually be found sprinting down the court. This is when the Bucks are at their most unstoppable.

That’s not hard to believe when you have Antetokounmpo on the team, using his mind-blowing euro step to easily get around retreating defenders. If it’s not Giannis going for a dunk, it’s often a transition three-pointer scored by one of the Bucks’ top sharp shooters.

The fact that the Bucks have so many different ways to score, means they can break any team when they are sprinting down the court. They just have to create these opportunities for themselves.

To get these fast breaks, the Bucks will need to do a better job of gaining defensive rebounds and creating turnovers. In both categories, the Milwaukee Bucks did a poor job in Game 1.

The Heat had 12 offensive rebounds, which is only 22 fewer than the Bucks had total rebounds in the game. This is a fundamental element that just needs to be coached and executed better, and something the Bucks have generally done very well in recent times.

Another area where the Miami Heat soundly won in the box score was the turnover battle. The Heat had 16 turnovers compared to 19 from the Bucks, and Miami also gave up 18 points fewer than the Bucks off of their turnovers.

The Bucks’ defense will need to create more turnovers and gather more defensive rebounds to overwhelm the Heat’s transition defense.