Things have certainly taken quite the turn for the NBA and the Milwaukee Bucks have been no exception when it comes to the recent rise in COVID-19 cases. As of right now, the Bucks have four players in health and safety protocols in addition to the players sidelined due to injuries as well.
The rise in players entering health and safety protocols has meant that many teams have been forced to play shorthanded and be creative with their lineups out of necessity. For the Bucks, in particular, they will be without Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bobby Portis due to the protocols, in addition to missing Brook Lopez and Thanasis Antetokounmpo (who missed last night’s game against the Cleveland Cavaliers but remains to be seen how long he is out).
That means they could be playing with only “traditional” big men in DeMarcus Cousins and rookie Sandro Mamukelashvili. It won’t be easy, but the Bucks will need to lean into their small-ball lineups to get through their next few games.
The Milwaukee Bucks will have to get creative with their lineups to succeed
Before the season, a lot of the concern around the Bucks roster was focused on their lack of depth with their big men. They had Lopez, Portis, and Antetokounmpo but not much else behind it that could play reliable minutes.
The problem was exacerbated when Lopez began missing time with a back injury that eventually needed surgery. They found success with starting Portis alongside Antetokounmpo to help their rebounding woes and got creative with their defense.
Portis doesn’t offer nearly the same rim protection as Lopez, so they played more aggressively on pick-and-rolls. They also added veteran big man DeMarcus Cousins to provide some size, but as we’ve seen, he’s a bit of a magnet for fouls at times.
Now, they’ll be asked to rely on Cousins and a second-round rookie to hold down the front-court minutes while the team battles their health and safety protocol issues.
However, Cousins and Mamukelashvili have played a combined 224 total for the Bucks this season, and relying on those two to all of a sudden carry 25-minute-plus workloads is a bit untenable. That means we’re going to get a bit weird!
Let’s start with those two bigs though and how the Bucks have performed with them on the floor. Per Cleaning the Glass (subscription required), the Bucks have played 132 possessions without the following four players on the court this season: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Brook Lopez, Bobby Portis, and Thanasis Antetokounmpo.
In those limited possessions, the Bucks are (surprisingly) plus-12.3 points per 100 possessions. Their most used lineup (16 possessions, so extremely small sample) is plus-84.7 and it features Cousins, Rodney Hood, Khris Middleton, Pat Connaughton, and Jrue Holiday. That figures to be a lineup we see relatively often in the upcoming games, so the nice thing is they have some minimal familiarity with each other and it features arguably the Bucks’ three best players that are still available. Clearly, it has a lack of size, and Cousins won’t be able to play that often, so where do they go from there?
Prior to last night, Milwaukee had played a whopping two possessions without any big man on the floor and it was a lineup of Middleton, Connaughton, Holiday, Grayson Allen, and Jordan Nwora.
I’ll be honest, I don’t hate that lineup and you’ll see it a lot while the Bucks are playing shorthanded without their most valuable bigs. It’s the only way to get your four best players on the floor and Nwora has been a relatively solid rim protector this season for his position. His 1.4 percent block rate is in the 94th percentile among wing players.
Connaughton has played around seven percent of his minutes at power forward this season (a career-high) and will likely see that number rise over the next couple of games. Middleton can also play some small-ball four which will give them some versatility, but it will be a lot of piecing together lineups for head coach Mike Budenholzer.
Playing the Cavaliers with such a small roster won’t be easy, but they’ll have a couple of days off after that to recuperate and, hopefully, get some players out of protocols ahead of another back-to-back set with the Houston Rockets and Dallas Mavericks before playing the Boston Celtics on Christmas.
Perhaps the dire protocol situation will facilitate the move for another big or de-facto big.