When Myles Turner isn’t on the court for the Milwaukee Bucks, their defense falls apart. For a team that’s looking to compete in the Eastern Conference, having the defense hinge on one player being on the court isn’t an ideal situation, and it’s one that the Bucks need to figure out how to solve as the year goes on.
Don’t get it twisted: It’s great that Turner is able to help the defense as much as he has. Milwaukee inking him to a deal had to have been with this type of impact in mind, as he’s the perfect archetype of center to pair alongside Giannis Antetokounmpo. But they can’t rely on him to carry the load defensively while everyone else fails to contribute.
There has to be a middle ground.
How bad is Bucks defense without Myles Turner?
So far this season, the Bucks don’t have a very great defense. They currently rank 18th in the NBA in defensive rating at a 115.4. That puts them roughly on par with teams like the Philadelphia 76ers and Phoenix Suns.
However, the difference between the Bucks’ defense with Turner on the floor vs. Turner off the floor is palpable. Because with Turner on the floor, they would be rising up in those rankings.
When Turner is on the floor for Milwaukee, they have a defensive rating of 111.7. If the Bucks had that defensive rating for the entire season, they would be ranked eighth in the NBA, right between the Detroit Pistons and Dallas Mavericks.
Unfortunately for the Bucks, the opposite is true when Turner is off the floor. When he’s not playing for Milwaukee, their defensive rating tanks to a 122.9. That would put them in 28th place in the NBA. The only two teams with a worse defensive rating than that are the New Orleans Pelicans and Brooklyn Nets—the only two winless teams left in the NBA.
That’s a pretty unsustainable gap in defense. The Bucks need Turner to be on the court in order to be suitable on that end of the court, and that’s not an endurable practice.
Even the stats for Antetokounmpo being on and off the court aren’t as drastic as the ones for Turner. With Antetokounmpo, their defensive rating is 118.0, and without him, it’s 118.3.
Turner is the catalyst that makes Milwaukee’s defense run smoothly.
Without him on the floor, they simply are not competing on the defensive side of the ball.