On Monday night, the Milwaukee Bucks picked up their first win of the 2024 preseason with a 111-107 victory over the Chicago Bulls. With five games on their preseason docket, the Bulls decided to rest six regulars — Ayo Dosunmu, Zach LaVine, Jalen Smith, Nikola Vučević, Coby White, and Patrick Williams — and let their younger players sop up most of the minutes for the night.
The Bucks did not handle things well in the first half as the Bulls ran out to a 68-59 halftime lead. In the second half though, the starters saw their first third-quarter action of the preseason and responded immediately, putting up a 15-2 run in the first three minutes, taking control of the game.
“It’s tough, I will say this, we were pretty sure they were going to play all their starters and you can see the guys’ (disappointment),” Bucks coach Doc Rivers explained after the game. “Listen, I don’t want to be down, but it was good for them to gather together defensively and start moving the ball.”
Giannis Antetokounmpo tallied 24 points, 10 rebounds and four assists in 23 minutes. Damian Lillard put up 20 points, grabbed five rebounds and dished nine assists in 27 minutes. The Bucks’ starters played the most minutes in any preseason game so far. On Thursday, the Bucks play their preseason finale in Dallas against the Mavericks.
Rather than rehash the details of Monday’s game, we’re going to try something different.
To highlight what is happening with the team, we’re going to hit three things — one play, one player and one trend — that have stood out during the first week of preseason action in hopes of showing you what is happening, from the micro to the macro, with the Bucks in the preseason.
We’ll try to do something similar to this regularly throughout the season, so feel free to let us know how you feel about the format in the comments below so we can tweak it and put together something useful for you throughout the season.
Let’s get into it.
One play: A game opening DHO
The goal here is to highlight a single interesting or noteworthy play. It could reveal a larger trend or simply be an interesting standalone play that featured an unusual action.
This week, I’ve pulled the opening play from Monday’s win over the Bulls.
Throughout the preseason, Rivers has made it clear that the Bucks have slow-rolled the installation of their main offensive actions because they would like Khris Middleton to be on the floor more consistently before they do that. That has meant using base read-and-react offensive movements throughout much of the preseason. While the Bucks are more than talented enough to score in those moments, they haven’t been executing at the highest level as there has been some sloppy play.
That has meant that high-level execution, which Rivers also wants considerably more of this season, has been reserved for plays called on the sidelines after timeouts (ATOs). This was a fun play that the Bucks used to open up the game on Monday.
There are two things here: first, dribble handoff action between Antetokounmpo and Lillard will always be interesting. This is a simple interaction between the Bucks’ stars, but offensive action doesn’t need to be complex to be successful. Posting up Antetokounmpo furthers the distance between his defender (the helper) and Lillard and that creates a open look for Lillard to start the game.
Second, this play was built around Gary Trent Jr. as a screener. It opened with Trent setting a ghost screen — tapping the defender on his left hip before running in the opposite direction — on Lillard’s man and then continued with Trent making his way over to Lillard’s man and just running through the contact to force a switch, which was coming from a defender doubling Antetokounmpo in the post.
The second screen might not have exactly been legal, but Trent’s size and strength at shooting guard could end up being something to watch for the Bucks this season. If he is willing to stand in and set real screens for Antetokounmpo, he can force switches to let Antetokounmpo take advantage of smaller defenders. If he can use his quickness and size to get in front of Lillard’s defenders and force switches there, the Bucks may be able to find more favorable matches for Lillard when it matters most.
If he’s consistently able to force switches for both of the Bucks’ best offensive players, a Trent screen may end up being the first part of many crunch time plays this upcoming season.
One player: Gary Trent Jr.
Speaking of Trent…
Since Antetokounmpo ascended to superstardom, the role of the Bucks’ starting shooting guard has been pretty simple: defend and knock down open 3s.
Over the years, Milwaukee has seen many players succeed in that role. While each player did it in his own unique way, Donte DiVincenzo, Wesley Matthews, Grayson Allen and Malik Beasley all found great success fulfilling those duties. Trent is off to a strong start in finding similar success in his own way.
On the defensive end, Trent is known for his ability to generate turnovers. In the aggressive system in Toronto under Nick Nurse, Trent racked up 226 steals in 136 games, or 1.66 steals per game, during the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons as he jumped passing lanes and took chances to help the Raptors force turnovers at a higher rate than any other NBA team.
While that was useful in Toronto, the Bucks will need Trent to focus more on the physical one-on-one defense that he flashed in the first two seasons of his career in Portland. This will be especially important when chasing over the top of screens and playing in tandem with the Bucks’ big men.
Just watch how well Trent remained connected to D’Angelo Russell at the start of this possession against the Los Angeles Lakers:
Brook Lopez is one of the best defensive big men in the NBA in drop pick-and-roll coverage, but that coverage requires a partner on the ball that is fitting over the top of the screens and remaining somewhere close to the ballhandler in the pick-and-roll. As proven last season, Lopez’s excellence can be wasted when his partners in the pick-and-roll don’t stay attached to their assignments and guards are allowed a free run at the basket.
“Here, it’s different players and different talent that gives you a certain comfortability,” Trent said Monday night. “When I’m guarding the ball up, I’ll be able to pressure more, I’ll be able to try to turn them a little bit more when I know I have Giannis or Brook on the backside that can protect me.
“So it gives me a little bit more freedom on the defensive end. So really just trying to hone in on that side of the ball. Obviously, shots are gonna come, but try to lock in on that and establish myself on that end.”
Trent won’t need to make a steal as he did on the play above against Russell, but he will need to be incredibly solid on the ball for the Bucks to find their top-10 defensive form once again this season.
If Trent puts in the necessary effort on the defensive end, it sounds like he will be given the freedom to enjoy the mantra of the Mike Budenholzer era on the other end: just let it fly when he sees an open shot.
Like this one in Detroit, for example:
“If you have an open look, put it up,” Trent said earlier this preseason when asked about Rivers’ directives to him on offense. “He communicated that to me and everybody on the team as well. Everybody has a certain green light, obviously with a certain amount of control and a certain thinking process, but other than that, it’s free flowing. Telling you to go out there, play hard, let it fly and let it fly. Just make sure it’s a good shot.”
One trend: Struggles on the defensive glass
With strange lineups throughout much of the preseason, it’s difficult to take too much from the games, but Rivers has mentioned at least one thing that has bothered him with the regulars outside of Khris Middleton for the last two contests: poor defensive rebounding.
The Bucks gave up seven offensive rebounds to the Bulls in the first quarter, including this one in transition:
That was a play where the Bucks were playing five-on-four because Trent missed a shot around the rim and took contact that forced him out of the initial rush, but it still highlighted the team’s lack of tenacity on the glass.
“I see us not locating and making contact and I also see us not pursuing the ball,” Rivers said of the team’s defensive rebounding on Monday night. “I thought that’s what we did better in the second half.
“That’s what we talked about at halftime. Like we have inside position, the ball’s there and that guy thinks (his teammate is) going to get it. And we were like, ‘Can we just all run into each other and pursue the ball?’ And we did that. We got every loose ball in the second half, those same plays. So it’s going to be good to watch on film.”
If the Bucks are going to return to the style of defense they mastered under Budenholzer, that requires excelling in a couple categories. As already mentioned, the Bucks will need Trent to help at the point of attack, but if Lopez and Antetokounmpo are going to be stationed around the rim, the Bucks have to be one of the two or three best defensive rebounding teams in the NBA. Last season, after five consecutive seasons in the top three, the Bucks dropped to eighth in defensive rebounding percentage, according to Cleaning the Glass.
The Bucks have one more chance to prove they are ready to control the defensive glass in Dallas, but if they can’t get it done, it will be something to watch heading into the season.
(Photo of Gary Trent Jr.: Benny Sieu / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)
