Milwaukee Bucks showing depth in midst of injuries
By Kenny Jilek
The Milwaukee Bucks have caught the injury bug in a major way in the last few weeks of the regular season, but their depth has kept them atop the NBA standings.
This Milwaukee Bucks team was built to last through the wear and tear of 82 games this season. Instead of spending big money to keep Jabari Parker or trying to convince a big star to come to small-market Milwaukee, Jon Horst made some savvy moves to acquire plenty of solid contributors. Brook Lopez, Pat Connaughton, Donte DiVincenzo and Ersan Ilyasova have all added lots to this team.
Mike Budenholzer had a master plan coming into the season and rotated all of his backup guards, including Sterling Brown, Tony Snell, Connaughton, and DiVincenzo. This kept them all fresh and always ready. Each one of them went through stretches where they appeared to be in the doghouse and were kicked from the rotation, but they were always inserted back in and never missed a beat.
Connaughton went through an extended period through December and January where he very seldom saw the court. He earned his spot back and has been everything the Bucks have needed lately. He has played at least 20 minutes in 18 of the last 20 games and has scored in double-digits in eight of those games. By many measures, he is having the best season of his career. He is averaging career-highs in points, rebounds, assists, and his favorite thing to do-dunks. This year he has doubled his previous career high in dunks from 20 last year to 40.
Brown knew he would have to step up with Malcolm Brogdon out. Coming off of an injury of his own that knocked him out for 13 games, Brown has taken on a brand new aggressive mentality. He has been attacking the basket hard and shooting the ball well from outside. In his seven games since coming back from injury he is averaging 13.1 points per game on 49 percent shooting, and 41 percent from three-point range. It is a small sample size, but he has looked like a completely different and more polished player.
The combination of Connaughton and Brown has weathered the storm of injuries including Snell, Brogdon, Divincenzo, and most recently Khris Middleton. With the flurry of injuries, they were forced to sign a guard in Tim Frazier to have a ball-handler on the court. He played all 53 minutes of an overtime heartbreaking loss to the Hawks and dished out 15 assists.
Another backup point guard who has stepped up lately has been George Hill. Thursday night, after Eric Bledsoe’s early ejection, he played 32 minutes and scored 20 points to help the Bucks knock off the Philadelphia 76ers in a possible Eastern Conference Finals preview. That is his third game in a row with at least 18 points. These have been big contributions from a bench player at the right time.
The Bucks are getting big performances from different supporting role players every night. This, combined with consistent MVP play from Giannis Antetokounmpo, is the perfect formula to thrive with multiple big scorers out. They are going to need to continue to find guys to give them scoring output in the absence of top guys like Brogdon and Nikola Mirotic. That may seem like a tall order, but all of these players have shown they are capable of putting up big numbers, but have sacrificed shots to get better ones for teammates.
I believe that right now the question is not whether they can continue to get performances from role players, it is which role player will do it on any given night. Maybe we will see D.J. Wilson put up 20 this week, or 30 from Brook Lopez. There are lots of possibilities for scoring sources on this team, and that is what has clinched them the best record in the league, and makes them an extremely scary playoff team, and the favorite to come out of the Eastern Conference.