Orlando Magic Playoff Preview: Meet the Milwaukee Bucks with Behind the Buck Pass

Why have the Bucks struggled some since the season restarted? What areas does it seem like they need to sharpen up?

Jordan Treske: In many ways, the Milwaukee Bucks have looked, at times, like a team that had not played basketball in nearly four months going into this restart. But arguably the biggest issue to me has been the ball security and sloppiness we have seen them struggle with when trying to set up the team’s offense over the seeding games.

Of course, Eric Bledsoe’s arrival to Orlando being delayed by his COVID-19 case set back the Bucks in having their starting point guard and the injuries and absences from their leading focal points over the scrimmages and seeding games only exacerbated that issue. And with a lot of those mistakes being self-inflicted, having their regular rotation set in place should go a long way in addressing that problem.

Jordan McGee: Yeah, it is offensive execution. The official line from the coaching staff will always be defense first, but the Bucks have been putting so much added pressure on their defense through turnovers and poor shot selection in their games since the restart.

With the way the Bucks play on the defensive end, they are going to concede a far from insignificant number of 3-pointers by design. They have proven that can work, but that illusion quickly becomes shattered if other areas of the game begin to fail them.

If the focus ends up on the Bucks’ three-point defense in this series, that will likely mean they’re having major issues in another notable area that’s exacerbating that problem.