Milwaukee Bucks: On The Defensive
By Steve Krebs
While many teams depend on high volume scoring to pave the way for success, The Milwaukee Bucks have accumulated 21 wins due to their tenacity on the defensive end — forcing bad shots, pressure on opposing guards, and limiting points in the paint have all played a major role in the unexpected prosperity 43 games in.
Coach Jason Kidd figured out early that it would be a highly unlikely scenario for his team to outscore opponents on a consistent basis with the personnel that make up the Bucks roster.
Implementing a mindset that focuses on the defensive aspect for 48 minutes must have seemed like a much more realistic approach to take — and it has worked out swimmingly.
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Being that the Milwaukee Bucks have started a total of 15 different lineups in 43 games, the efficiency in defense spans across a wide variety of units.
What Defensive Stats Stand Out The Most?
Limiting opponents to only 10.4 (No. 1 rank in the league) fast break points every contest speaks volumes in regards to the success stemming from the defense – because Milwaukee is not very capable of running up the score, this forces the opposition to play a half-court game, limiting the amount of scoring opportunities.
Aggression on the glass has limited opponents to only accumulating an average of 30.9 rebounds every contest- although, they can certainly do a better job on limiting opposing offensive rebounding, where they are ranked 26th (11.8), teams are only scoring 13.4 second chance points against Milwaukee.
Amassing 9.5 steals per game shows the Bucks are putting a tremendous amount of pressure on the ball – creating confusion, forcing mistakes, and showing the awareness to capitalize on bad decision making manifested by this tenacity.
Making your opponents shoot a lower percentage than your team will obviously always be a key to attaining more wins than losses, and the Bucks are holding the other guys to only 43% from the field, while only letting up 97.2 points per game. Once again, this is a result of the aggressive approach on the ball.
What Aspect On Defense Needs To Improve?
The Milwaukee Bucks will have to figure out a way to shrink the court when in a half-court set, they cannot allow teams to attempt 23 three-pointers per game, because sooner or later, those shots will start to fall. If they [Milwaukee] can force teams to limit spacing then the opportunity for open shots will decrease immensely.
Due to proactive defense, the Bucks tend to foul a lot more than others in the league, which gets the opposition to the line an average of 24.7 every contest- this number has to be decreased drastically, not only for the points, but because they are allowing the clock to be stopped while points are being accumulated.
Overall, Milwaukee has turned their defensive woes from last season completely around under Coach Kidd. It is because of this they will more than likely be one of the 16 teams taking a shot at the chip in April.