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Should The Milwaukee Bucks Rest Their Starters?

By Peter Myhrer

Apr 12, 2015; Milwaukee, WI, USA; Milwaukee Bucks guard O.J. Mayo (00), forward Giannis Antetokounmpo (34), guard Khris Middleton (22), and center John Henson (31) react after the Bucks defeated the Brooklyn Nets 96-73 to clinch a playoff spot at BMO Harris Bradley Center. Mandatory Credit: Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports
Apr 12, 2015; Milwaukee, WI, USA; Milwaukee Bucks guard O.J. Mayo (00), forward Giannis Antetokounmpo (34), guard Khris Middleton (22), and center John Henson (31) react after the Bucks defeated the Brooklyn Nets 96-73 to clinch a playoff spot at BMO Harris Bradley Center. Mandatory Credit: Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports /
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The Milwaukee Bucks went into Sunday’s game against Brooklyn controlling their own destiny. Win, and not only would they be in the playoffs, but they would clinch the sixth seed. Milwaukee went on to dominate the Nets in convincing fashion, winning 96-73 and putting together arguably their best performance since the trade deadline.

It’s official now. The Milwaukee Bucks are playoff bound as the sixth seed in the Eastern Conference and this is how Giannis and myself feel about it.

The team has two very winnable regular season games left as they face the Philadelphia 76ers on Monday and the Boston Celtics on Wednesday. Their final record will be .500 or better as long as they win one of those games, but will that reasoning be enough to play their starters this week?

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The “should we rest our players?” question is a problem some teams have already been faced with over the course of the 82-game NBA season. The San Antonio Spurs have become notorious for giving players rest and even holding out their entire starting lineup in order to minimize fatigue and injuries in recent years. Cleveland, in an extreme example, gave LeBron James two whole weeks off early in January to let him heal up for the team’s inevitable playoff run.

The young Bucks fortunately have not had to really deal with this type of situation though. Having an average age of only 24.1 will do that. Now, however, the team has a decision to make on that front.

Milwaukee has nothing left to gain from the regular season other than a win or two more in the record books. Whether the team is 42-40 going into the first round or 40-42 isn’t relevant so that shouldn’t factor into the coaching staff’s decision.

There are basically two schools of thought in regards to resting a team’s players. The first one is the basic understanding that resting a player will help him be fresh for future games. The other belief is that resting a player and keeping him out of the game environment will leave his game rusty in future games.

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    • There’s evidence for both reasonings and there’s no choice that’s universally correct. In regards to the sport of basketball though and the Milwaukee Bucks specifically, flat out resting players is the right decision.

    An example of when this wouldn’t be the right choice is in the NFL. Football teams often rest their starters after clinching home field advantage throughout the playoffs. The week off due to the resting, culminated with the team’s bye week in the first round of the playoffs is just too long for players to stay on top of their game, especially considering it’s one and done in the NFL playoffs.

    The NBA is much different though. Players play multiple games a week and there is no bye week. The NBA playoffs also feature best of seven series, so if a team comes out flat in Game 1, it’s not the end of the world.

    Keeping an NBA player’s game in sync simply isn’t worth the risk of injury and the guarantee of fatigue. By the end of an NBA season, players have racked up well over 1,000 minutes.

    Even with how deep and young the Bucks have been this season, players that have started all year like Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton must be feeling burnt out. Antetokounmpo has played 2,448 minutes on the year and Middleton has been on court for 2,296 per Basketball-Reference.com.

    Judging from how Giannis has responded in the last two games after his unexplained benching, the 20-year-old definitely benefits from receiving some rest at this juncture of the season.

    The Milwaukee Bucks are a team built on defense and quality defense takes a lot of effort. A fresh squad and a relentless defense is exactly what Jason Kidd‘s staff needs to go on the road and win a game in the first round of the playoffs.

    The one rotation player that should be an exception to this plan is Jared Dudley. He’s been really struggling from the field in the second half of the season (he only shot 32.5 percent in the month of March) and a heavy dosage of minutes should be just the cure. Let him have free rein on how many shots he shoots for the last two games and let him shoot his way out of the slump.

    So yes, it might mean that we’ll be watching a lot of Johnny O’Bryant and Jorge Gutierrez in the upcoming two games (no disrespect to either), but losing one or two more games won’t be worth remembering when the Bucks are suffocating their first round opponent with well-timed rotations and fundamentally sound close outs.

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