Milwaukee Bucks: 3 biggest wild cards that will determine Miami Heat series

What role will Brook Lopez have in the Milwaukee Bucks’ series vs. the Heat?

Bucks big man Brook Lopez has certainly trended upwards as the team closed out the regular season and going into the playoffs.

Lopez’s best basketball of the year and arguably over his time in Milwaukee occurred down the stretch and the Bucks made a point of leveraging Lopez’s size, strength and scoring skills in the post and the paint to enhance the Bucks’ offensive firepower even further. Whether the Bucks will continue exploiting any size advantage they have against the Heat with Lopez remains to be seen going into the series.

Ultimately, that will be informed by what role Lopez ultimately has against Miami. Lopez’s defensive usage and role is very much intertwined with the Bucks’ drop-back defensive scheme that catapulted them to regular season success but has regularly been exploited in the postseason.

Of course, the Bucks have made a point in incorporating more defensive changes and schemes, but it has often left Lopez sitting on the bench, especially in close games late. And it’s been largely hit-or-miss when Lopez is on the floor and the Bucks are deploying anything other than the drop scheme.

Lopez stands in the middle of this push and pull that the Bucks are faced with in terms of putting their new, more experimental ways into practice.

Miami’s shooting clearly isn’t at the same level as it was last season and during last year’s Conference Semifinals matchup. But it goes deeper than the 3-point attempts that the Bucks will likely let up at a high volume as the in-between shots that the Heat will look to exploit with their cadre of ball handlers stand to be an even more worrisome threat in terms of Milwaukee’s defending.

For all of that, it stands to reason that Lopez’s minutes will greatly fluctuate depending on how the series plays out.