Bucks still facing several questions
The Milwaukee Bucks will come out of the all-star break with just 26 regular-season games left over 51 days to coalesce and be primed to make a deep postseason run. And, they'll have to do it by playing the bulk of their early schedule on the road.
They begin the “second half” in Minneapolis on Feb. 23 and play just two home games (Feb. 27 and March 4) in the next three weeks. It's an immediate test for a team that is just 1214 away from Fiserv Forum.
Within that inherent challenge, the team has some pressing questions to answer coming out of the break:
Can the Bucks win a title after hiring Doc Rivers?
The Bucks made a coaching change when Adrian Griffin was fired after 43 games on Jan. 23. Joe Prunty led the team to a 2-1 record in the interim before Doc Rivers fully assumed the head coaching role, giving him just 36 regular-season games to get things moving in the right direction.
It's a new challenge for Rivers, who took over a team midseason for the first time in his 25-year coaching career. And, he's added new wrinkles to offensive and defensive schemes that a revamped roster is still trying to get a handle on.
But already Rivers has noted how he wouldn't wish taking over midseason on anyone, how assuming control during a 10-day road trip was difficult, how he wanted to wait to do so at the all-star break and then how he had hesitation in accepting the job because he didn't know why ownership would fire Griffin.
That's a lot to unpack for Rivers, specifically, there is precedent for a team winning a title after making an in-season coaching change – even if no team has done it after such a late date:
● Ty Lue, a Rivers protégé, took over the Cleveland Cavaliers with 41 games left in the 2015-16 season and guided them to a title after a 27-14 finish.
Pat Riley returned to the bench to coach the final 61 games of Miami’s 2005-06 season, and they went 41-20 before winning a title.
● Riley won his first championship after taking over during a season also, going 50-21 with the 1981-82 Los Angeles Lakers.
● The coach Riley replaced in 1981, Paul Westhead, also had a similar experience when he took over 14 games into the 1979-80 season and led the Lakers to a 50-18 record and a championship.
If Rivers were to lead the Bucks to a title this year (or at any point in his tenure), he would become just the fourth coach in league history to win championships with two organizations. He would join Riley, Phil Jackson (Chicago, Los Angeles Lakers) and Alex Hannum (St. Louis, Philadelphia).
So it’s been done – but not often, and not too recently.
Can the Bucks find their identity?
The Bucks know they can lean on individual greatness to get them a bucket, if needed. But at no point in the first half of the season did any player want to say that’s what they wanted their identity to be.
And Rivers recognized something Griffin also combated after a disappointing loss to Miami on Feb. 13, which is how sometimes the Bucks “get our personality from the offensive end,” Rivers noted.
“And we don’t want that. We want to get our personality from playing hard on the defensive end.”
Now, that forging of a new personality – or identity – is coming more into shape with Rivers.
Maybe they wouldn’t be the best defense in the league, but they knew they had to be better, and they finally are putting that end of the court together.
Since Rivers took over on the bench the Bucks allowed fewer than 100 points in consecutive regular-season games on Feb. 9 and Feb. 12 for the first time since Nov. 22-24, 2021. And the Bucks have improved to the No. 12-ranked defense in the league in allowing 113.6 points per 100 possessions.
They are No. 10 in opponent points per game at 113.0 per game.
Prior to his arrival, Milwaukee was No. 19 (116.3) in rating and No. 24 in opponent scoring (120.1).
Unfortunately, as the defense has improved the team has had severe issues on offense as Khris Middleton (5 games), Brook Lopez (3) and Damian Lillard (2) have missed time. The team has plummeted to No. 22 in offensive rating (111.9 points per 100 possessions) and No. 24 in scoring the last 10 games at 111.0 points per game.
And while they may not want their personality to be derived from offense, they also have to re-establish their previous effectiveness.
When will they start winning more often?
From the very beginning of his tenure Rivers has maintained that while he wants to win every game, he acknowledged there’s a bigger picture at play. The players have bought into this as well, though Jae Crowder said prior to the break they wanted to see some winning to go along with the in-game progress the team has made.
Following the Feb. 12 victory over Denver, Giannis Antetokounmpo quipped that he wished they had a few more games before the break because the team was starting to churn ahead on its proper course as opposed to still turning into it.
But the team hasn’t won three in a row since Jan. 22-24 and its seasonbest run was seven straight from Dec. 1123.
Now, Antetokounmpo and Bobby Portis noted mid-season win streaks aren’t a signal for great things in the playoffs. They both referenced the 16game win streak last season from Jan. 23-March 1 and Antetokounmpo recalled the 18-game win streak from Nov. 10-Dec. 14, 2019, as stretches that didn’t result in championship seasons.
But to begin to win more often, now, is important.
There wasn’t a head coaching change in those previous seasons. They had a firm identity. Now, they are beginning to recast that image under Rivers. While they didn’t like the way they were winning under Griffin, they were winning. At some point the results need to be there under Rivers, regardless of strength of schedule – because if you fashion yourself as a championship team then you should be able to beat quality opponents.
Milwaukee Bucks head coach Doc Rivers stands in front of team owner Wes Edens during a game against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Feb. 8 at Fiserv Forum.
And they’ll get that chance to do both coming out of the break as they face the best team in the West in Minnesota on Feb. 23. Then, they have a chance to get on a real streak as they head to Philadelphia for a matinee on Feb. 25 before two games against Charlotte and a game against Chicago before a gauntlet of Western Conference opponents in March.
Do they want it?
It’s a question Antetokounmpo pointedly asked following a disappointing loss to Memphis on Feb. 15.
Rivers said the team needed to make changes in how it played on a nightly basis, so perhaps after the break he tweaks lineups and rotations to help facilitate that. But invariably, that question can only be answered by the players over the final 26 games.
While some elements of the team’s trajectory can’t be forced – lineup chemistry, smoothness in running new sets – a desire to get it together is an intangible. Will they stop looking ahead, or assuming things will click eventually because of their talent? It’s a question only the locker room can answer and might ultimately have more to do with the result than anything else.