Milwaukee Bucks: 4 lessons learned for the defending champs
By Franco Luna
Defense wins championships, with or without elite spacing
When it rained it poured. This is as much a commentary on the Bucks opposition’s offensive firepower as it is their long-winding offensive droughts against a stout Milwaukee defense.
It’s a three-point bomber’s league, but the Bucks found themselves at the top despite shooting just 32.1% through their finals run and finishing 14th out of 16 playoff teams in that statistic. It clearly didn’t matter, and they still went all the way. This is because, as the adage goes, defense wins championships; the Milwaukee Bucks proved that quite masterfully this season whenever they were locked in and playing team basketball.
Whether through team basketball or elite rebounding, the Bucks discovered that one core aspect of their identity as a basketball club ended up being more important on the court than the other. For a team that proudly wore the Let it Fly banner and finished as the only team with 16 wins, their 112.2 points scored per 100 possessions was only good for the 11th-best offense this postseason.
As they fought through a generally clunky offense, the Bucks realized after two miserable losses that the only way to win was to wear down Kevin Durant. It was no coincidence that the best basketball scorer in the world could not buy a bucket in a crucial overtime period in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals.
They brought the same formula into their matchup against the Phoenix Suns, knowing full well that a floor general like Chris Paul would contort their defense and give them problems all series long. As mentioned, deploying Holiday to muddle Paul’s typically optimum point guard play is what made all the difference in their backdoor sweep of the Suns.
It wasn’t just the individual and on-ball defense that mattered, but their team defense and switching off the ball. These aspects of their scorer-stopping were perhaps wholly personified in PJ Tucker, whose ability to take on the likes of Butler and Durant were paramount to the team’s success.
To say that their defense made up for their offense would be a blatant reduction of this team’s greatness. Consider this statistic: in 72 together against the Suns, the Bucks’ most-played lineup of Lopez, Giannis, Tucker, Middleton, and Holiday allowed 98.7 points per 100 possessions.
Not only would this have been a league-leading defense, but it would have also been one of the best in history. Despite scoring at an utterly average caliber at best, the best defense and best rebounding team in the NBA playoffs outlasted its seemingly more talented opponents against all odds.