Milwaukee Bucks: Crashing the offensive glass with regularity
While the Milwaukee Bucks’ identity relies on the defensive end, their emphasis on crashing the offensive glass has yielded great results to start the season.
There have been certain hallmarks to expect from the Milwaukee Bucks over the Mike Budenholzer era.
With so much emphasis coming on the defensive end and their overall fundamentals, the Bucks’ identity has largely been built on that side of the ball. The results have spoken for themselves in the last two regular seasons obviously. And with that, the Bucks have made strategic choices as to what they will or won’t prioritize, whether it’s allowing shot attempts in specific areas or abandoning the offensive glass entirely.
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But through their first six games this season, the Bucks have showed different wrinkles than have been normally associated with these Budenholzer-led Bucks.
While much of this Bucks group’s identity is coming together with Jrue Holiday in the mix, Milwaukee’s energy crashing the offensive boards has been plain to see on possessions.
That has led to the Bucks ranking fifth in the league with a 29.2 highest offensive rebounding percentage through their first six games of the 2020-21 season, per NBA.com/stats. It’s certainly a small sample size to gleam from, but it’s quite the sea change all the same when you consider they pulled down 24.1 percent of their misses last year and 25 percent of their misses during the 2018-19 season.
By tracking down their misses at such a high rate, the Bucks have promptly earned their numerous second chance opportunities. Per pbpstats.com, the Bucks have 68 second chance possessions, the third-highest mark of the league, and have scored 83 total points on such possessions, a number that ranks behind the Los Angeles Lakers and Atlanta Hawks.
As the Milwaukee Bucks look to crash the offensive boards more consistently, whether they can maintain their elite defensive prowess is the question.
Pulling down extra possessions has benefited the Bucks in being able to add to their offensive firepower. But the big question that Bucks fans are wondering is whether having a greater emphasis of crashing the offensive glass is how that could compromise their defense, at least on the surface.
To this point, the Bucks’ transition defense hasn’t suffered as they’ve allowed the fourth-fewest opponent fast break points per 100 possessions. That, by no means, indicates the Bucks’ defense has played up to the standard they’ve set over the Mike Budenholzer era.
The Bucks have still fallen in the same pitfalls, such as allowing such a high volume of threes to their opponents, that have contributed to the three losses they have taken this season. And while their stout rim protection has stayed intact in terms of limiting looks at the basket, the Bucks are allowing 66.4 percent in the restricted area to their opponents.
That latter number will surely come back down to earth as the new-look Bucks start to gain familiarity with one another. In the process, they’re sporting new wrinkles that have run counter from the tenets that Budenholzer and his staff had originally established upon their arrival to Milwaukee more than two-and-a-half years ago.
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We’ll just have to see how much this trend sticks to the Bucks’ strategy and whether it eventually contributes to consistent success as they go further into the season. But it’s clear they’re doing some experimenting on the margins early in their run this year.