Milwaukee Bucks fans should be optimistic about upcoming schedule

The Milwaukee Bucks are on a four-game losing streak, but that streak has come against three of the best squads in the Eastern Conference. A lack of shot creation, attacking, and three-point shooting have been the main points of frustration during this mini-losing streak.

The upcoming nine games on Milwaukee’s schedule are a great reason to cast away any doubts regarding Milwaukee. This stretch will be a chance for Milwaukee to string together a line of wins and a chance for certain players to snap out of cold streaks and get back into form.

The upcoming schedule is very favorable for Milwaukee Bucks

The next four games on the slate for Milwaukee are all winnable ones. Milwaukee’s last game of this calander year comes against the Timberwolves. Minnesota is under .500, and they have a struggling interior defense. This could be a game where Giannis Antetokounmpo puts up a boatload of points.

The Bucks then start the new year with a back-to-back against the Washington Wizards at home and then follow that up with a trip to Toronto to take on the Raptors. All four of these games are very winnable.

The next five games for the Bucks are against the Hornets, Knicks, Hawks, and then back-to-back in South Beach against the Heat. In the next nine games for Milwaukee, every team they play is play-in tournament caliber or worse in the current standings, with the exception of the New York Knicks, who are barely the sixth seed currently.

The only Western Conference matchup in this stretch of games is Minnesota, who sits at 11th in the Western Conference as of today. In Milwaukee’s losing skid, the biggest issues to me have been a lack of ball movement and three-point shooting. The thing about that is that it can be hard to shoot consistently from three when there is a lack of ball movement.

A good amount of Milwaukee’s offensive plays have been isolation lately, and there really hasn’t been a guy hunting out teammates for their shots. Some of that falls on role players for unwillingness to shoot, but I would like to see Jrue Holiday play pass first over these next few games. He has obviously made good passes and had good scoring nights as of late, but I believe we can maximize our offensive production with Jrue attacking and setting up his teammates more.

Coach Budenholzer has not drawn up too many good plays lately, and our offense has been predicated on giving the ball to Giannis or Jrue and letting them go to work. This stretch of games will hopefully be an opportunity for Budenholzer to scheme up a few more plays offensively to help get the team into a rhythm.

As far as rotations go, the starting five fielded against Boston would be ideal if Khris Middleton is out. One player that has earned more time and could help our team is rookie MarJon Beauchamp. Beauchamp has already proven he can knock down a three-ball, and he has proven that he plays good defense for a rookie.

I am not sure what Coach Budenholzer thinks Wes Matthews can do better than Beauchamp right now. Beauchamp has played well when he gets the chance, and the hope is that he gets a spot in the rotation, especially with Middleton still out.

One hope is that Joe Ingles can get going over this stretch. He is in the latter half of his career playing on a new team, so he needs a little bit of time and patience from fans to see what he can do coming off his ACL injury. Through his first few games of the season, he has struggled.

Milwaukee has some work to do coming off their four losses to some of the East’s top teams, but they still remain towards the top of the league in overall record, and their upcoming schedule is very promising.