After a disappointing finish in the NBA playoffs a year ago, the Milwaukee Bucks’ path for redemption begins through the Orlando Magic.
Following a dominant start to the regular season, the Milwaukee Bucks sputtered through the NBA bubble to the tune of a 3-5 record. If that disappointing play brings any pause, Milwaukee should feel confident in their 4-0 sweep of the Orlando Magic during the regular season.
And the Bucks will be playing a depleted Magic team at that. Superb defender Jonathan Isaac tore his ACL and is out for the year. Mohamed Bamba recently left the bubble. Aaron Gordon has a hamstring injury and his status for Game 1 is up in the air. Despite those hurdles, Orlando posted the same 3-5 record as Milwaukee in the bubble. But the comparisons stop there.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic shutting the league down, the Bucks were downright dominant.
Their defense ranked first by over three full points per 100 possessions and the offense was strong enough to rank sixth overall. Their net rating was 3.6 points better than the second-place Los Angeles Lakers. Giannis Antetokounmpo was coasting to his second straight MVP award.
Milwaukee’s pre-bubble dominance likely informed the way they returned to regular season action. With a 6.5 game lead over the second-place Toronto Raptors, they only needed to win two of eight games in Orlando to clinch the number one seed. So getting back to game shape while remaining healthy was the only real priority.
Still, rust is not always easy to shake. And while the Magic will need to play a perfect series to overcome the Bucks’ immense talent advantage, Milwaukee undoubtedly wants to begin their playoff run in the strongest way possible.
Key Matchup: Orlando Magic vs. Non-Giannis Minutes
It’s a virtual certainty that the Bucks will win starters’ minutes throughout the series. There’s no talking around that. And it makes the bench minutes that much more critical for Orlando to win big.
The one upside for the Magic comes in looking at last year’s playoffs. It’s common practice for superstars to sit in the regular season, especially in today’s league. But then those minutes generally balloon in the playoffs as the competition stiffens.
Milwaukee was an exception to that rule last year, though.
Giannis Antetokounmpo played only 30 minutes per game in the playoffs last season. In the conference finals, that number rose to 38.5 minutes per game, which is still relatively low. Kawhi Leonard, by comparison, played 41.3 minutes per game in a winning effort.
Much of this likely stems from the fact that coasting is not in Giannis’ repertoire. He gives so much effort when he’s on the floor that he can’t play the same minutes as others. Not being in game shape should only exacerbate that issue in this year’s first round.
So it’s imperative that the Magic win any and all bench minutes and do so in a big way. That’s complicated by Orlando’s injury problems, which thins out their second unit. Michael Carter-Williams, who provided a nice spark off the bench at times, is doubtful for Game 1. The frontcourt is without Jonathan Isaac and Mohamed Bamba.
And then there’s the strength of Milwaukee’s bench itself.
The Bucks dominated second quarters, out-scoring opponents by 9.1 points per 100 possessions, even when the starters sat. George Hill runs the second unit as well as anyone and strong role players like Donte DiVincenzo, Kyle Korver, and Robin Lopez play error-free basketball to maintain leads.
Orlando will need to change that in a massive way to have a chance to compete in this series. Whether their starters play more minutes or they get help from unexpected sources, they will have no shot if they can’t dominate games when Giannis is resting.
1. Who guards Giannis?
Sadly, we were robbed of one of the more intriguing matchups of the first round when Jonathan Isaac went down with an ACL injury.
Sure, no one can truly stop Giannis, but Isaac is uniquely built to defend him with his combination of length, athleticism, and instincts. It wouldn’t probably have made any difference in the eventual outcome of the series, but it would have been a lot of fun to watch.
Without Isaac, Orlando is left to scramble to find a way to limit the reigning MVP. Aaron Gordon would be the most logical replacement but he has a hamstring injury reminiscent of Giannis’ matchup with a hobbled Blake Griffin in last year’s first round. If Gordon’s hamstring is passable, he possesses the ability to react and recover well enough to play off the Bucks superstar and provide some resistance closer to the basket.
Without Gordon, the Magic are left with some combination of James Ennis, Wesley Iwundu, and Gary Clark to slow the most unstoppable force in the league. While all three are competent defenders, none of them possess the type of elite defensive ability that is necessary to even limit Giannis.
So unless Steve Clifford has some extra magic up his sleeves, Orlando’s hopes for slowing Giannis ultimately hinge on Aaron Gordon’s health.
Can the Magic make enough threes?
One of the more interesting aspects of ever-evolving NBA defense is that elite defenses like the Milwaukee Bucks have been allowing more attempts from the long line than ever before. For years, it was believed that the best defenses had to be great at limiting 3-point attempts.
Yet this year’s Bucks defense was as elite as can be but allowed a league-high 39.1 attempts per game. From a frequency standpoint, they were only slightly better, conceding the third-highest deep shots as a percentage of total attempts. And opponents were around league average in terms of both shooting percentage and corner three attempts.
Undoubtedly, a portion of the 3-point defense comes from opponents being so far down that they jacked up as many threes as possible. But, there’s certainly something to the high number of deep attempts allowed.
The Magic, however, isn’t the team best situated to take advantage of that defensive quirk.
Orlando was the fifth-worst shooting team in the league from behind the arc during the regular season and they were below-average in both attempts per game and frequency.
For Orlando to make the series remotely competitive, that will have to change.
Terrence Ross and Evan Fournier are the two most likely Magic players to have a real effect from behind the arc. Both are high-volume shooters and adept at making buckets in waves. If they can make a lot of threes, they can loosen up the dominant Milwaukee defense and provide other opportunities for their teammates.
But perhaps the biggest key comes in the form of Nikola Vucevic.
The Orlando big man has become a solid shooter and his ability to make shots would force rim protectors like Brook Lopez and Giannis to abandon the paint, opening it up for the quick Magic guards to force some scrambling by the Bucks defense.
If the Magic can’t make those shots, though, their path to a competitive series becomes overwhelmingly difficult.
Can the Milwaukee Bucks build momentum?
After a sluggish final eight games in the bubble, Milwaukee could certainly use a series to get back to the dominant form they showed early in the regular season.
Rust was undoubtedly a factor in the Bucks’ bubble struggles, as was their lack of motivation. After a long layoff, everyone was working to get back into game shape and Milwaukee’s strong start to the regular season allowed them to take that slower than teams fighting for playoff position and seeding.
One concerning statistic during the bubble was Milwaukee’s paint defense. Opponents’ shooting in the paint (non-restricted area) skyrocketed from an extremely low 36.7 percent before the shutdown to a mediocre 43.0 percent in the final eight games. The Magic, however, aren’t especially well-equipped to test just how real that fall is. Orlando ranked dead last this season in terms of paint-touch field goal percentage.
Perhaps more concerning was the struggles of point guard Eric Bledsoe. The Milwaukee point guard was extremely inefficient in the bubble and often looked completely out of sorts. After Bledsoe’s terrible play in the Eastern Conference Finals last year, it’s imperative that the Bucks get him back on track if they are going to make a deep run this time around. And he should have plenty of opportunities to find his footing against a relatively poor Orlando defensive backcourt.
Predictions
The Bucks are the prohibitive favorite in the series for a reason.
They were the best team in the league for the vast majority of the year and they are led by the reigning MVP.
The Magic simply lack the firepower on either end of the floor to compete with Milwaukee for a seven-game series. And they may not possess enough to compete even for a 48-minute stretch.
Last year’s Bucks-Pistons first-round matchup should be instructive. Without Isaac, Bamba, and perhaps Gordon, Orlando has a similar size-deficiency that is only exacerbated by the obvious talent gap. Markelle Fultz appears to be entering the starting lineup, which helps, but not enough. And the Magic don’t have any home-court advantage to potentially make a couple of games closer than they would otherwise be.
Without that home court, Milwaukee should roll.
Look for the Bucks to get back to their pre-shutdown form. Coach Mike Budenholzer is a smart, detail-oriented teacher who is surely showing the team its bubble mistakes and working hard to fix them.
The offense may take another series to fully recover, but expect Milwaukee’s defense to once again dominate an overmatched Orlando Magic team.