Milwaukee Bucks have NBA’s Toughest Remaining Schedule

The NBA All-Star break is coming to an end, and the Milwaukee Bucks currently sit as the Eastern Conference’s fourth seed with a record of 36-24.

The playoff race in the East is incredibly congested, to say the least. Although the four seed at the moment, Milwaukee is just percentage points behind three-seed Philadelphia in terms of win percentage, two games behind Miami — the two seed — in the win column, and only three games behind the East-leading Chicago Bulls.

Then behind Milwaukee by just half a game is Cleveland, the six-seeded Boston Celtics are only 4.5 games out of first and 1.5 games behind the Bucks, while Toronto, who holds the seven seed, is only 5.5 games out of first. And, oh yeah, the Brooklyn Nets are the current eighth seed at 31-29.

The race to the Eastern Conference’s top seed during this final stretch of the season is going to be a highly contested one with so many teams within striking distance of Chicago–and when it comes to the Milwaukee Bucks, if they hope to secure the top spot, or at least get close, they are going to have to go through the NBA’s toughest schedule out of the All-Star break to do so.

What does the remainder of the Milwaukee Bucks schedule look like?

NBA.com recently took a look at the remaining schedules for each team during the final month and a half of the regular season and by cumulative opponent winning percentage, the Bucks have the most difficult remaining schedule (.554). Although worth mentioning, not too far behind Milwaukee is Chicago, with the second-toughest remaining schedule (.543).

Of the 15 teams that currently have winning records, the Bucks will play a league-high 15 of them in this final stretch of the season. Nine of their games will come against current Eastern Conference playoff teams as well as matchups with the Western Conference’s top-5 teams.

Some good news, however, is that George Hill, who hasn’t played since January 28th, was not listed on Saturday’s injury report against Brooklyn, which could mean he is back in the fold after battling a neck injury. The hope is that Pat Connaughton will return before the regular season ends, and we did see Brook Lopez back at practice in a limited role–although expectations about his potential return should still be tempered.

Serge Ibaka will also have more time to get acclimated with this roster, and of course, the Milwaukee Bucks do have Giannis Antetokounmpo, who is second in points per game and in the MVP race once again, along with Khris Middleton and Jrue Holiday.

"“We have our goals in our head,” said Antetokounmpo via The Athletic ($$). “We want to be one of those teams that play at the end, play in June. But at the end of the day, there are steps that you go to do to get there, which is build good habits, keep enjoying the game, day-by-day keep on winning games. But yeah, I think we can do better. At the end of the day, everything we’ve dealt with this first half of the season and where we are right now, I think we have a hell of a team. But gotta keep bringing everybody together, keep building our chemistry, keep building our toughness. I think we can play better. There are times where we’ve played great basketball, there are times we’ve played really, really, bad basketball, but we know who we are, we know what we’re capable of and I think we know if we stay humble and hungry with a little it of luck, we can be in a good place.”"

The point of this article wasn’t to strike fear in Bucks fans; this group is going to win plenty of games moving forward, but instead, I wanted to illustrate that there may be some tough sledding at times, given the quality of opponents that Milwaukee will be facing, and claiming the one seed won’t be an easy task.

While the goal is to be the Eastern Conference’s top seed at season’s end, ultimately, what matters for the Milwaukee Bucks is how they perform in the playoffs, regardless of what seed they are. Although many of their remaining games will be difficult, it should also help prepare them for what lies ahead in the postseason.