3 keys for Milwaukee Bucks finishing homestand against Detroit Pistons

It feels so long ago that the Milwaukee Bucks were 6-8, fans were very upset after a loss to the Atlanta Hawks, and it appeared as though the sky was falling? Good times. The Bucks are now two games above 0.500, on a four-game winning streak, and will complete their five-game homestand tonight against the Detroit Pistons.

This will be the second meeting between these division opponents this season after the Bucks stomped on the Pistons at the beginning of this month in a 117-89 win. The Bucks were without both Khris Middleton and Jrue Holiday for that game and still had no trouble taking care of the Pistons. It was their lone win in a stretch where they went 1-5 and were at the height of their injury woes.

Now the Bucks have gone 6-2 over their last eight games, have appeared to turn a corner and look to be the championship-contending favorites that fans expected them to be. Regardless, the Bucks shouldn’t look past the Pistons and focus on picking up their fifth straight win.

Jrue Holiday needs to build off of his strong performance against Orlando Magic in this game with the Detroit Pistons

It is no surprise that Jrue Holiday has been struggling to score the ball efficiently to start the season. He has been putting up some truly horrid efficiency numbers and it’s been hard to watch at times.

He seemed to have a breakout game of sorts against the Orlando Magic earlier this week with a team-high 18 points on 60 percent true shooting. It was his highest true shooting percentage since his second game of the year against the San Antonio Spurs in October. Sandwiched in between that game and his most recent outing has been a stretch of nine games with a 41.4 percent true shooting.

Perhaps what’s most promising is that Holiday started the game 1-5 from the field, but recovered to put together a strong scoring performance.

Sure it came against a lowly Magic team, but it’s still a performance that Holiday can build on going forward. As I mentioned, he missed the first matchup against the Pistons and will have a chance against a team that, like the Magic, is in the bottom 10 in defensive rating.

The Pistons will also be playing the second half of a back-to-back as if the matchup wasn’t already lopsided enough on paper. Keep an eye on Holiday to build off how he played against the Magic in this one.