Milwaukee Bucks: Detailing the potential dangers of playing small

The Milwaukee Bucks have played plenty of small ball lineups over their series with the Miami Heat, but in doing so, they’ve veered away from a crucial part of their identity.

Now facing a 2-0 deficit in their series with the Miami Heat, the Milwaukee Bucks find themselves in a spot where very few one-seeds have been during a Conference Semi-finals series.

Their opening 115-104 loss Monday evening featured many of the self-inflicted miscues and lapses that have been a constant throughout their time in the bubble. If you were hoping for a respite in that regard for Game 2, you came to the wrong place and what was more concerning was how the backbone of the Bucks’ success, their defense, had failed them in the loss and in some of the basic ways.

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Among the many troubling issues on that side of the ball, the small ball lineups that have featured Marvin Williams as the lone man in the middle or alongside superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo have gone against the Bucks.

To that point, Williams has the third-highest defensive rating of all Bucks players that have seen the floor during the series, per NBA.com/stats. Following him is Antetokounmpo at 116.8 points per 100 possessions.

In the 25 minutes both Antetokounmpo and Williams have shared the floor together, they have a -28.4 net rating and have allowed 122.6 points per 100 possessions to the Heat, which stands among the worst two-man pairings for the Bucks so far.

Now some of Williams’ usage as a small ball center, in particular, has come as a result of both Antetokounmpo and starting center Brook Lopez getting into foul trouble as they both did in Game 1. With that said, it should be noted that it was a part of the Bucks’ strategy going into the night, given Mike Budenholzer’s early rotations and how they were insulating themselves against the Heat’s strong sharpshooting that has been a thorn in the Bucks’ side.

By doing so, however, the Bucks inadvertently ventured into an area that is unfamiliar to their system, especially on the defensive end. To that point, the Bucks allowed the Heat to take 25 shots within the restricted area and, thankfully, they only converted 48 percent of those attempts.

Even more startling was the fact that the Bucks only accrued a 66.7 defensive rebounding percentage, a mark that would rank the second-worst in their run through the regular season and playoffs combined. With the Heat pulling down 12 offensive rebounds, they were able to compile 13 second chance points as a result.

It’s one thing for the Bucks to uncharacteristically struggle protecting the rim and simply shooing away shots, it’s another for some of those missing shots to fall right back in the hands of Heat players. And when that’s compounded by the fouling issues the Bucks experienced, which sent the Heat to the free throw line on 27 occasions, all of it adds up to the Bucks playing very non-Bucks basketball defensively throughout Game 1.

Thankfully, protecting the rim and cleaning up on the boards were far from the most pressing issues in Game 2, as the Heat only attempted 14 shots in the restricted area and converted such chances at a 78.6 percent clip.

Yet the Bucks’ fouling issues loomed all throughout their Game 2 loss where they picked up 25 personal fouls, even right down to final buzzer when Heat All-Star wing Jimmy Butler sank a pair of decisive free throws that brought the Heat to 25-for-32 on the night.

All of this isn’t to spell out the idea that the Bucks going small for extended stretches is a bad idea. The question for the Bucks is how they can do improve their ability to play small while upholding the core tenets of their system that has been near and dear to their success over the last two years.

Certainly having someone like Eric Bledsoe, who missed Game 1 with hamstring tightness, will only beef up the Bucks’ defensive steel, especially at the point of attack and the perimeter. Yet we didn’t exactly see him help stave off Goran Dragic in Game 2 as the Slovenian finished with a team-leading 23 points on 18 shots and he and Butler’s shot creation from the perimeter and in-between spots have exploited the very looks the Bucks have historically allowed under Budenholzer.

The overarching problem for the Bucks is that they have had to work even harder to force stops on the defensive end and in turn, that has created this sort of tension between sticking to the tentpoles of their system, even as their personnel hasn’t played to the standards of it. All while the Heat have continuously walled up when getting back on defense to slow the Bucks’ propensity to play in the open floor.

And those underlying issues have as much to do with why the Bucks are currently down 2-0 to the Heat as plenty of doubt creeps in externally. Whether they can erase those doubts and stop the bleeding right now is on the minds of all Bucks players, coaches and fans and those answers await Friday night.