How Milwaukee Bucks are finding early success with two guard lineups

Even though they won the championship last season, there was a massive hole in the Milwaukee Bucks rotation throughout the playoffs: backup point guard.

The role became a vacancy after the Bucks initially traded George Hill in the offseason before last season for Jrue Holiday. They thought the role was filled when they signed D.J. Augustin to a relatively sizable deal for a reserve guard. It notably did not go very well. 

Augustin was then shipped off to the Houston Rockets for P.J. Tucker in a great show of not being attached to a past signing and being able to get out of a bad contract. That left them with Jeff Teague, who was signed off the buyout market, for the playoffs.

Teague had some nice moments but was largely unplayable for any significant time against a good playoff team. So the Bucks went back out and reacquired Hill to come to fill the backup point guard role.

One of the big selling points about having Hill back, though, was his versatility in being able to play both on-and-off the ball and being able to share the floor with Holiday. The two have been able to find instant success together and it has helped power the Bucks’ resurgence.

The success of the two point guard lineup for the Milwaukee Bucks

As I said, the value and versatility in having a lineup with two point guards was a key for the Bucks to bring back Hill. Bucks general manager Jon Horst spoke before the season with Eric Nehm of The Athletic (subscription required) and said believed that “he and Jrue could easily play well together.” Horst said that it was the deepest backcourt that the Bucks have had with Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton, which has proven to be the case on the court this season.

Despite some shooting struggles for Holiday this season (although he has gotten going a bit more the last couple of games), the two guards were vital in keeping the Bucks afloat while they were without Middleton, Brook Lopez, and Donte DiVincenzo.

While there is value in what they have done on their own and having that reliable backup guard is a big plus, when the two are on the floor together, things are even better.

Out of all the Bucks two-player combos this season, the combo of Holiday and Hill has the best net rating at plus-34.8 in 159 minutes. In fact, out of all two-man combos who have played over 150 minutes together, the Bucks guard duo has the best net rating in the league, per NBA.com/stats.

They have the third-best defensive rating of any two-man combo at 88.6 and the best offensive rating at 123.4. One of the more surprising things about a lineup with two guards is that those lineups still rebound very well with a 55.3 percent total rebounding rate.

Of course, the rebounding is not specifically because of Holiday and Hill, but it’s a good sign that even though they’re playing lineups that might be smaller, they are still getting on the glass and either getting extra possessions on offense. or finishing them off on defense.

One thought I had was that they’re being carried by Antetokounmpo, who has one of the highest on/off differentials in the league. But even in limited possessions with Antetokounmpo off the floor, the two-guard lineup for the Bucks is plus-26.7 in 105 possessions, per Cleaning the Glass (subscription required). So they’re still more than getting by on their own as well.

One of the biggest reasons for the success of these lineups is that they simply don’t turn the ball over much with a very low 11.7 percent turnover rate and they also get to the line often with a 22.4 percent free throw rate (along with not fouling much themselves, a staple of a Mike Budenholzer coached team).

Sure, these numbers may not hold up all season and the Bucks’ two-guard lineup might not be the overall best two-man combo for the entirety of the year. But what it shows us so far is that it has been an instant success and it’s something that can thrive when given the chance. It was a lineup combination I was interested to see early on and it has certainly paid early dividends.

Expect to see these lineups more as the season goes on as well as in the playoffs if the Milwaukee Bucks continue to perform at a high level like this.