MISUNDERSTOOD BUCKS A TEAM TO BE FEARED

Antetokounmpo, stellar supporting cast routinely brilliant, writes Ben Golliver.

The midpoint of the NBA season is here, and the Milwaukee Bucks are entrenched as valedictorians. They rank first in wins, point differential, points per game and defensive efficiency, they boast the MVP favourite in Giannis Antetokounmpo, and they haven’t endured so much as a two-game losing streak.

With no slumps or public ego battles to work through, the Bucks have taken to beating each other up in professional wrestling-style fights. The choreographed pre-game conflicts invariably end in laughs and back slaps, and they usually wind up being preludes to lopsided victories. It’s a good sign when flying elbows and eye gouges are emblems of harmony.

Antetokounmpo has occasionally flashed real rage this season — kicking a sign in November and punching his fist to draw a technical foul on Christmas — but more often his relentless physicality has left opponents whimpering. Milwaukee has won 22 games by double digits and 13 games by at least 20 points, enabling Antetokounmpo to pursue his personal version of load management by enjoying fourth quarters full of garbage time from the comfort of Milwaukee’s bench.

While the Bucks are indisputably the NBA’S best team, they also might be its most misunderstood. They have played so well and so consistently for three straight months that much of the conventional wisdom about them needs to be revisited.

For starters, they have earned a tenfold increase in hype, even if Mike Budenholzer, their purposefully dull coach, often sounds like he’s auditioning for a second career reading sleep stories on a meditation app. Milwaukee’s point differential is plus-12.4, a mark that eclipses every team in NBA history, including the 73-win 2016 Golden State Warriors and the 72-win 1996 Chicago Bulls. They’re on pace for 71 wins, a remarkable feat that borders on the absurd given that none of their players, not even Antetokounmpo, ranks in the NBA’S top 50 in minutes per game.

Much like those 2016 Warriors, the Bucks are elite on both sides of the ball, and they excel at pushing the tempo. Milwaukee leads the league in pace this season, with virtually every rotation player encouraged to launch three-pointers early in the shot clock.

Antetokounmpo is a terrifying one-man fast break, but the Bucks exhaust and break opponents with their teamwide perimeter onslaught and a well-honed ability to make good decisions while playing fast.

Consider: The Bucks are never discussed as a “Superteam,” yet they’re averaging more points per game (119.6) than any team from the past 25 years, including every iteration of Steve Kerr’s Warriors dynasty. Place the emphasis on “team” rather than “super,” and suddenly the label fits Milwaukee.

Therein lies the root cause of the Bucks’ mistaken identity. Because Antetokounmpo lacks a top-20 sidekick and because Milwaukee crashed out of the playoffs with four straight losses to the Toronto Raptors last year, they are too easily written off as a “regular-season team” that is overly dependent on their lone superstar or their “system offence.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. The Bucks are deep and talented, and their complementary pieces — all-star forward Khris Middleton chief among them — fit very well. What’s more, “systems” are inherently a good thing in the NBA. Which recent champions have thrived off chaos or failed to construct logical support structures around their centrepiece players?

The “regular-season team” talk is overly simplistic, too. Not only did the Bucks open the playoffs with a 10-1 start last year, they did what great post-season teams do: obliterate average competition and outlast good competition.

In the first round, Milwaukee blasted the Detroit Pistons and rendered their centre, Andre Drummond, unplayable.

In the second round, Milwaukee humiliated the Boston Celtics, adjusting to their smart defensive scheme on Antetokounmpo and continually applying pressure until Kyrie Irving cracked.

The only hurdle Milwaukee couldn’t scale was Kawhi Leonard, the best player in last year’s playoffs, who happened to be performing at peak level.

Even then, the Bucks led the Eastern Conference finals, 2-0, and took Game 3 to double overtime on the road. The end of that series said more about Leonard’s talent and the Raptors’ resolve than it did about the Bucks, who were in uncharted waters at the time.

Although last year’s track record doesn’t guarantee that the Bucks will win the 2020 title, they are the East’s prohibitive favourites. They are better and more experienced, while their major conference rivals have plateaued or regressed.

I was kind of upset after the game. Talking in the locker-room, it was like, ‘Guys, we were up by 20, we won, but this isn’t going to go in the playoffs.’

The Bucks’ record isn’t perfect — a Christmas Day loss to the Philadelphia 76ers was an obvious blemish — but they have scored victories over the West’s top two contenders, the Los Angeles Clippers and Los Angeles Lakers.

Their routine brilliance continued on Thursday, as they aced another high-profile showdown by building a 27-point lead against the Celtics before hanging on to claim a 128-123 home victory.

Antetokounmpo finished with 32 points, 17 rebounds and seven assists, but he paid no mind to his typically gaudy numbers, choosing instead to focus on Milwaukee’s second-half let-ups.

“I was kind of upset after the game,” Antetokounmpo said, his focus and priorities clear. “Talking in the locker-room, it was like, ‘Guys, we were up by 20, we won, but this isn’t going to go in the playoffs.’ We’ve got to play for 48 minutes. Coach Bud came in here and was steaming hot. He was angry. That’s good.

“He doesn’t really care about this game or the next game, he cares about how can we get better and how we can be good for 48 minutes. That’s our goal. Instead of stepping on them, we let them come back easy.”

If they played in a bigger market, or if Antetokounmpo was a thirstier self-promoter, perhaps the general conversation about the Bucks would go deeper than the cautious respect they are usually paid.

It’s time for their perception to change anyway. After compiling a 97-28 record under Budenholzer, the Bucks deserve to be feared and revered.