Milwaukee Bucks: 3 notable things to watch against Washington Wizards

After snapping their 3-game losing streak to get back to 0.500 earlier in the week, the Milwaukee Bucks will try to get back to that mark tonight against the Washington Wizards. It is the beginning of a five-game road trip for the Bucks that will see them play five teams who made the Eastern Conference playoffs last year.

Specifically, with the Wizards, the Bucks have gone 8-1 against them in the last three seasons and have won eight straight against the Wizards. That being said, this isn’t close to the same Wizards team from those years. They have a lot of depth and my favourite way to describe them is that they just have a lot of dudes who do things.

Although the Bucks will be looking forward to their visit to the White House on Monday, the task in front of them is not an easy one.

Washington has gotten off to a surprising 6-3 start to the season despite Bradley Beal struggling with his scoring to begin the year. They’re top ten in both offensive and defensive rating at the time of writing and certainly aren’t a walkover like they used to be so the Bucks will be in for a tough game.

Can someone on the Milwaukee Bucks please box out against the Washington Wizards?

I don’t care what Basketball Reference tells me, it feels like the Bucks are so much worse than their 18th-ranked defensive rebound percentage suggests. The Knicks put up a 40 percent offensive rebound percentage on Friday and that was one of the big catalysts for their comeback.

The Wizards aren’t a great offensive rebounding team with only a 20.4 percent offensive rebounding rate that ranks 21st — only four spots higher than the Bucks. They should have an easier time against the Wizards frontcourt that will still be without Rui Hachimura and Thomas Bryant, but Montrezl Harrell is someone who could bring some energy by crashing the offensive glass.

Yes, Brook Lopez is out and that is a huge factor for why the Bucks are struggling to corral rebounds and finish possessions. However, the Bucks should still be able to find ways to clean up the glass and have an abominable rebounding performance where the opponent nearly grabs as many offensive boards (20 for the Knicks) as the Bucks have defensive ones (30).

I don’t want to keep patting myself on the back but I said before the season that the frontcourt depth could be an issue, especially since Bobby Portis is not a center who traditionally makes his team defensive rebounding better.

Lopez has missed a total of eight games over the last three seasons and it seems like the Bucks don’t know how to rebound without their big man in the middle. It’s not a huge reason to panic just yet, but it’s worth keeping an eye on if this back issue lingers for Lopez later in the season.