Not much needs to be said about the Milwaukee Bucks' defeat to the Brooklyn Nets. Outclassed and outworked on both ends of the floor.
Last season's issues seem to be continuing over despite a number of changes to the roster. The opening night victory over the short-handed Philadelphia 76ers showed glimpses of what the Bucks can be, and it looked like the league would have a problem. Fast forward to Monday, and back-to-back defeats to the young Chicago Bulls and Brooklyn Nets show that there is a lot this Bucks team needs to work on.
Now, we are only three games into the season, so there will always be things to iron out, but some of the concerns surrounding the Milwaukee Bucks will be huge problems if they want to achieve their goal of winning another NBA title.
Here are three of the biggest concerns and how the Milwaukee Bucks can fix them.
1. Rebounding
Rebounding has been a problem early on for the Milwaukee Bucks, and more specifically, preventing offensive rebounds. Despite sitting 14th in the league in total rebounds, the Bucks are 27th in offensive rebounds. Then, looking at the opponent's numbers, the Milwaukee Bucks allow the 10th most rebounds to a team with 47.3.
In the opening game against the Sixers, they lost the rebound battle 49 to 46, which is nothing drastic until you look closer and see they gave up 17 offensive rebounds. Against the Bulls, it was 47-46 in the Bucks' favor, and they did better by allowing just nine offensive rebounds on that occasion. Then, the Nets beat them 47-43 on the glass and registered 12 offensive boards.
With Giannis Antetokounmpo, Brook Lopez and Bobby Portis all being available, the Milwaukee Bucks need to stop their opponents from grabbing offensive boards and creating second-chance opportunities. They allowed the Nets to score 21 second-chance points.
To make that worse, the Milwaukee Bucks only had seven second-chance points, so it is a clear hole in their game that allows teams to run away with leads. The Nets are expected to be one of the weaker teams this season, and they comfortably beat Milwaukee.
There are two ways Doc Rivers can fix this. The first would be changing up the rotation and allowing the younger guys with more athleticism to play and letting them use their physical assets to crash the boards. The second option is a simple one that requires players to buy in and be more aggressive, crashing the glass on both ends of the floor. That way, the number of offensive rebounds given up will decrease somewhat.
It has been a worrying sign for a Milwaukee Bucks team that has been so good at rebounding in recent years, and they have the players available to alter this issue.
2. 3-point defensive effort
Coming into this season, a lot was made about the new defensive scheme the Milwaukee Bucks would implement and how they wanted to be more versatile. So far, it hasn't worked. The Bucks currently have the eighth-worst defensive rating at 115.9, and that is with four teams below them having played two games as of writing.
The 3-point defense has not been good in their two defeats with the Bulls hitting 21 threes on 44.7 percent shooting serving as a primary example. Brooklyn hit 16 threes on 35.6 percent shooting from deep.
That isn't helped by the Bucks' lack of threes, hitting 13 on 32.5 percent and 10 on 30.3 percent in those games. Against the Sixers, they did hit 16 on 43.2 percent, so is that an outlier or just two bad shooting nights for Milwaukee?
Looking back to the defense, there is just a clear lack of effort to close out on threes, allowing players to be open. Against Brooklyn, Dennis Schröder hit five, Cam Johnson and Noah Clowney buried three each and Cam Thomas hit two.
This goes hand-in-hand with the rebounding of just effort but also raises some questions. How are teams getting up so many threes and hitting them, but also, how are opponents grabbing so many offensive rebounds?
One obvious way again to fix this is to work out the rotation more by getting some higher-energy guys in, like Andre Jackson Jr., to hustle and make opponents work harder to get shots off from deep. Or the change might be a defensive scheme issue, but that is slightly concerning considering the talk of the offseason and the additions of players to fit the scheme.
For it to have failed to work against two teams that potentially won't make the Play-In Tournament in the Eastern Conference is troubling.
3. Turnovers
These all feel like really basic things the Bucks need to work on, but they have all caused massive issues. Turnovers against the Nets were just diabolical from start to finish. They had three in the first five minutes, seven in the first quarter and 10 by halftime. They finished the game with 18 turnovers.
Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard led with four, which doesn't sound horrific, but when almost everyone on the team is turning the ball over, it is an issue. Bobby Portis didn't in his 27 minutes and neither did Jackson, AJ Johnson and Tyler Smith, but those three only played three minutes. Everyone else had at least one giveaway.
Across their three games, the Bucks are averaging 15.7 turnovers per game, which does have them 16th in the league. What is apparent is the other contending teams are already taking much better care of the ball. The Boston Celtics, Dallas Mavericks, Oklahoma City Thunder, New York Knicks, LA Lakers and Denver Nuggets are all within the top 10 for least turnovers and average 13 or less.
Again, this is reflected defensively, with the Milwaukee Bucks forcing the third least turnovers per game, so it is another concern on both sides of the ball. This could be a schematic issue of not putting enough pressure on opponents but also an individual issue of the Milwaukee Bucks players not being secure in their possession of the basketball.
Not wanting to single him out, but Lillard is averaging four turnovers per game, worse than any of his other seasons in the NBA. Of course, we are only three games in, but it is clear that better care of the ball needs to be taken.
To turn this around offensively, it is just a matter of the players not being sloppy but also not letting it compound to where multiple turnovers occur in quick succession. Offensively, they may need to be smarter in getting people open and not creating opportunities for teams to steal the ball. Defensively, again, it may well be worth playing more of the younger, energetic guys to hound opponents and force them into making mistakes.
We are only three games into the season, but there are clear things for the Milwaukee Bucks to work on, and they have been apparent in all their games. They have a long way to go, but things need to be addressed before they become a real problem.
Stay tuned for more Milwaukee Bucks news and analysis.