Throughout their first four games of the 2024-25 NBA season, the Milwaukee Bucks are a measly 1-3.
There is a laundry list of issues that have plagued the Bucks throughout this poor start, but one of the main ones is the production from the bench. Milwaukee's second unit has been anything but reliable, and their most recent loss to the Boston Celtics highlighted that.
The Bucks' reserves mustered just 19 points, with just nine of those coming from Pat Connaughton and Bobby Portis, Rivers' top two bench players. Meanwhile, Boston got 30 points from their bench, with sweet-shooting guard Payton Pritchard accounting for 28 of them.
With his bench unit struggling to show any sign of life, Doc Rivers admitted that he extended minutes for his starters, which led to them seemingly getting tired and running out of steam in the final frame.
"I thought we kind of ran out of gas a little bit. Didn't get a lot of help tonight from our bench, so we extended minutes."
The Bucks cannot keep extending minutes like this consistently
The Milwaukee Bucks are primarily comprised of older veterans. The plan is to be in the best shape possible later in the season, which could be a challenge if the starters have to play prominent minutes just to keep the team in games early in the season - it's even worse when they add these miles and lose the game, as they did to Boston. Sooner or later, players, especially older ones, will get tired.
To avoid this problem from hanging around, the Milwaukee Bucks need more from their bench unit.
Bobby Portis has to be better. Not only has his defense been poor to start the season, but he hasn't impressed on offense, either. Against Boston, he scored just four points on 2-of-6 shooting, adding four turnovers in the process. When he's getting taken advantage of defensively while also disrupting the offense with poor shots, it's tough to keep him on the court. The Bucks need him to bounce back.
Milwaukee also needs more from Delon Wright, Damian Lillard's backup at the point guard slot. While there were high expectations played on him coming into the season, he has been far from impressive in these first four games. In just under 10 minutes, he had a quiet showing, logging just one assist and one turnover. Subpar numbers like that simply won't cut it from the veteran.
Then there's Pat Connaughton, who totaled just five points and two rebounds in 15 minutes of action. With the guard struggling for the third year in a row, plenty of people have been asking for the Bucks to make a change and get some youth into the rotation over him. At this point, with the team failing to keep up with quicker, more athletic teams, a change makes all the sense in the world.
Taurean Prince returning to the second unit when Khris Middleton returns will be a big boost, but the Milwaukee Bucks still have no clear timetable for a return for the All-Star forward. For now, this is the group they have, and things are not clicking. The bench unit should take Rivers' words to heart and do their part to avoid the starters getting burnt out from extended minutes constantly.
If not, the Milwaukee Bucks must shake their bench up to surround their top players with talent who can help.
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