Milwaukee Bucks: 3 intriguing lineup combinations worth testing in 2021-22

Milwaukee Bucks fans should be intrigued about George Hill and Jrue Holiday playing together

All of the talk surrounding the George Hill signing was about how he’ll stabilize the backup point guard minutes for the Bucks and how he’ll keep things steady when Holiday is off the floor. Well, I am here to flip that notion on its head and tell you to be excited for what Hill can do when Holiday is on the floor.

I’m sure it’s not something that they’ll go to often, but I can absolutely see these two sharing the floor in a closing situation along with Antetokounmpo, Middleton, and whichever role player best suits the matchups that game.

Neither Hill nor Holiday have been seen as true point guards, especially in recent years. Holiday played more shooting guard than point guard in his final couple of years in New Orleans while Bucks fans have seen Hill share the floor with Eric Bledsoe to close games in years past. Heck, the Bucks had Holiday play the two this past year and they did really well in the limited minutes.

This is to say, both have experience playing off-ball and don’t need the ball in their hands to be effective on offense. Especially in lineups with Antetokounmpo and Middleton, those are two more options to handle the ball and create offense, so having that off-ball experience is crucial.

On defense, we know what Holiday brings to the table. He can guard pretty much anyone and is arguably the best one-on-one defender in the league. Hill is a bit of a different story. He’s a bigger guard at 6-foot-4, 188 pounds but at 35 years old, how much of a step has he lost at that end? Bucks fans will remember his defense pretty fondly and he was a solid bridge defensively in the minutes Bledsoe was off the floor.

Against other reserves, there shouldn’t be too much of a worry with how he’ll hold up but against starters, especially closing games, the Bucks might have to hide Hill a bit more with the other defenders they’ll have around him.

There are so many more lineup combinations that we could see Budenholzer pull out of his bag this season, but these are just a few that could be very interesting and something to watch for when the season starts up.