Bucks are trying to get the ball rolling
Team hopes homestand establishes consistency
Beginning with a 30-point New Year’s Day blowout of Chicago at Fiserv Forum, the Milwaukee Bucks have begun a five-game, nine-day homestand against Central Division rivals and a Western Conference contender in Utah.
It is their second-longest home stretch of the first half of the season, but it’s a microcosm of the new scheduling this year: They will perform in front of no fans, face Detroit twice in three days and have to navigate one back-to-back.
“We don’t have to pack and travel, go to a hotel, city-to-city (but) we will miss
our fans significantly until it’s safe and everybody agrees its right to have them back at Fiserv Forum,” Bucks head coach Mike Budenholzer said Sunday. “It’s hard to articulate how much we miss the fans and how important they are to us.
“But to have a handful of games here the rest of the week at home, hopefully it’s an opportunity for us to play well, get comfortable with the routines for when we’re here in Milwaukee and improve.”
The Bucks are also now in a stretch where they play every other day six times over the next two weeks.
“You get into a little bit of a rhythm when you’re playing every other day so hopefully that will happen to us this week and going forward,” Budenholzer said.
By opening the homestand with a victory to improve to 3-3, it may give the Bucks a chance to establish some of the consistency Budenholzer and the players have said has been slow to form with a rushed start to the season.
For instance, the team was able to work on individual skills Saturday and then practiced in full Sunday, which Budenholzer said included some scrimmaging.
Pre-game shootarounds for Bucks are often optional, but the fact that the team doesn’t have to navigate the different testing windows and time constraints of scheduling them on the road may also present opportunities this week.
“Anytime we’re at home it’s a positive for us,” guard Donte DiVincenzo said. “Anytime we’re able to practice, it’s a positive. And anytime we’re able to sleep in our own beds it’s a positive. So I think yeah, you can put together a good run.
“I think you can start to develop that chemistry a little bit more by practicing more, by being around each other more. I think it’s a good opportunity for us to get some wins but also just to get better in practice.
“I think we have a great opportunity in this stretch to practice a lot and build that chemistry even more.”
And it’s an early chance to re-establish a homecourt advantage at Fiserv Forum where the Bucks have gone 43-11 since it opened, including a 2-0 mark this year. To put their first win streak of the season together at home would be an early anomaly of sorts in the NBA, as heading into Sunday’s league schedule, Eastern Conference teams were a combined 22-23 at home with only the Bucks and Philadelphia (3-0) being unbeaten thus far.
“I wouldn’t say it would be a neutral site, but I wouldn’t go as far as what it was last year before we shut down,” DiVincenzo acknowledged. “I think there’s still an advantage because you’re in your normal routine. You’re at home, you’re doing your normal routine, you’re doing your normal stuff, you’re not going back to the hotel and seeing the same team that you’re paying.
“You’re around your family, you’re around these guys in the facility. So there is an advantage, but I wouldn’t say as much as what it was last year or the year before that.”