The Orlando Magic have a tall order ahead of them in facing the Milwaukee Bucks. The challenge is a great one so we asked the experts about them.
There is one name the Orlando Magic and everyone needs to know when it comes to the Milwaukee Bucks.
Giannis Antetokounmpo.
The league’s 2019 MVP and presumptive 2020 MVP has become a tour de force around the league. It goes without saying that everything revolving around the Bucks — and everything defending the Bucks — starts and stops with Antetokounmpo.
Antetokounmpo is likely to win the MVP award and finished the season averaging 29.5 points per game, 13.6 rebounds per game and 5.6 assists per game with an astounding 58.9-percent effective field goal percentage.
Sure, the Bucks struggled since the season resumed, going 3-5 just like the Magic. But the comparison likely ends there. Milwaukee probably let its focus wonder as it had already wrapped up the top seed.
Still, Antetokounmpo was good enough to make the All-Seeding Round Second Team, averaging 27.8 points, 12.2 rebounds and 4.2 assists per game. The only thing that could slow him down was his coach choosing to rest him and the head butt that suspended him for a game.
The Bucks are a lot more than Antetokounmpo. As terrifying as Antetokounmpo might be on offense, it is their defense that really charges him and their entire system.
Milwaukee uses an aggressive drop coverage to try to protect the paint. The Bucks led the league giving up the fewest points in the paint per game this season at 38.7 per game. That is nearly three points per game better than the next best team.
It is hard to break into the interior of this defense. And that is obviously where a lot of teams get their easiest shots and set up their 3-pointers.
The Bucks do a good job forcing difficult shots and turning turnovers into fast-break points.
It is not just Antetokounmpo either.
Khris Middleton is one of the best shooters in the entire league. He averaged 20.9 points per game and nearly completed a 50/40/90 season. He shot 49.7-percent from the floor overall. But he can hit from everywhere.
Eric Bledsoe is one of the strongest and toughest defensive point guards in the league. And he can score and force his way to the basket. He averaged 14.9 points per game and 5.4 assists per game.
They can boast solid role players who play hard and precise. Brook Lopez has transformed himself into both a strong shooter and a strong defender. And guys like Ersan Ilyasova, Donte DiVincenzo, Pat Connaughton and Wesley Matthews all play their roles perfectly, providing a strong sense of shooting and defense.
Nobody seems to play outside their role.
But, again, it all starts with Antetokounmpo and the stress he puts on the defense.
To say the least, this is going to be a difficult matchup for the Magic. They are going to have to be nearly perfect to find holes in this defense and they have to make shots against one of the best defenses in the league.
Orlando has its work cut out for it. But everyone starts at 0-0 and you still have to play the games. The Magic certainly feel capable of competing in this series.
They will have to let things play out.
To get an inside look at the Bucks and where they stand as this series begins, we chatted with Adam McGee and Jordan Treske of Behind the Buck Pass. You can see our answers about the Magic with them too.
How did last year’s playoff experience and falling short of the Finals shape this team? In what way did that adversity make this team better or change them?
Jordan Treske (@JordanTreske): To be completely honest, I am not sure all of those questions have been fully answered at this point and it is the $1 million question burning for the Milwaukee Bucks going into this playoff run.
Don’t get me wrong, the Bucks’ Conference Finals collapse from a year ago has lurked in the background of everything they have accomplished, and multiple Bucks players and head coach Mike Budenholzer have openly talked about the lessons they have learned from that series. And obviously, before the season suspension, the Bucks did not let the end to last year affect them from being an even more successful team than what they were in 2019.
But for as much as the Bucks have only reinforced the many things that made Budenholzer’s first year so transformative, I think we will have our answer to the biggest question of them all in terms of whether they have can execute the lessons that all Bucks holdovers learned against the Toronto Raptors.
Adam McGee (@AdamMcGee11): Jordan nailed it. The only questions left for the Bucks to answer can only be answered in the playoffs.
The picture has certainly been complicated significantly by the unique and unprecedented nature of how this postseason will play out, and we have perhaps already seen some signs for concern in the Bucks’ play on that front.
The Bucks are waiting to learn if their key players can take them over the line when it matters most, whether their defense will hold up or their offense will prove strong enough to ease some of the pressure on that defense, and more simply whether the shots that did not fall a year ago will go down this time. It has been a long and arduous waiting game, but now we’re going to start to get some answers.
After Giannis Antetokounmpo’s MVP season last year, how did he get better to become another seeming runaway choice for the award? Is there any way to stop him at this point?
Adam McGee: At this point, there is an element of shrugging your shoulders and accepting this is what Giannis Antetokounmpo does.
He has improved year-to-year throughout his NBA career, which is something that likely does not get the attention it deserves in terms of just his pure gains in production. It is no secret that Antetokounmpo’s jump shot remains a work in progress. But there has been some improvement on that front this year, in terms of work he has put in on different looks from the mid-range and beyond the arc.
I think most Bucks fans would also say Antetokounmpo has improved as a passer this year, which is one of a number of things that he has worked on since the Toronto Raptors managed to wall him off in the Eastern Conference Finals. Antetokounmpo is as competitive as any player in the league, and when he takes a loss as he did a year ago, his natural response just seems to be to work even harder to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
Jordan Treske: Adam absolutely nailed it when it comes to describing the state of Antetokounmpo’s maturation and overall development. Given just how much he continues to improve season after season, he has set such an incredibly high bar for himself to clear and still continues doing so, all of which is a testament to that insatiable work ethic Adam was talking about.
As far as how to slow down or limit Antetokounmpo from wreaking havoc on a nightly basis, it seems the only way to do that is to use his aggression and physicality against him to get him into foul trouble and off the floor completely. We have certainly seen that put to good use in the bubble and I think that will only increase the further the Bucks go into the playoffs.
But given the lengths it takes to get that done only goes to show just how dominant Antetokounmpo is to the Bucks’ system and ability to contend for an NBA title.
Aside from Giannis, who is the team’s unsung hero? What player makes this team work so well?
Jordan Treske: Strictly speaking to this year’s team, I think Wesley Matthews perfectly fits the billing of the Milwaukee Bucks’ unsung hero. That certainly stems from the set of circumstances that led to his arrival with the departure of Malcolm Brogdon.
With the Bucks essentially trading Brogdon’s shot creation and snug ball-handling ability in favor of Matthews’ 3-and-D services within the starting lineup, the Bucks brought on their lead defensive stopper on the perimeter. With Matthews taking on such big defensive matchups and mostly succeeding in that department all year long, that has unlocked the likes of Eric Bledsoe and Khris Middleton to take on even more offensive responsibilities and the Bucks have obviously benefited doing so.
You take what you can get with Matthews’ streaky shooting, but he has certainly made the mark in his Wisconsin homecoming by solidifying the team’s starting unit.
Adam McGee: Matthews is a great call, but there is no shortage of other candidates either.
Outside of Giannis Antetokounmpo, no player is more fundamental to how the Bucks structure their game on both ends than Brook Lopez. His 3-point shooting got a lot of attention last year, but with that dropping off prior to the restart at Disney, it seems like his importance was underplayed more generally this year.
Lopez is incredibly skilled in so many departments, offensively, but he would be very much deserving of All-Defense honors this year too. Beyond that, there is a strong case to be made he has been the Bucks’ best player in the bubble to date. Outside of Brook Lopez, what George Hill and Donte DiVincenzo bring off the bench is also essential, although that duo has yet to look quite like themselves since the season picked back up.
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.
Do you see John Hammond’s influence in the Orlando Magic? Are they building something similar to what the Bucks built? What is the viewpoint of Hammond’s tenure as general manager now with the Bucks pushing toward a title?
Jordan Treske: Without a doubt, I certainly see John Hammond’s fingerprints over the Orlando Magic’s rebuild during the last three-plus years and that goes beyond just finding the prospect that has the biggest wingspan in the draft (cues laughter from the audience).
In all seriousness, I think the biggest difference I can gleam from Hammond’s tenure in Orlando and how it differs from his time in Milwaukee is the patience that he, along with Jeff Weltman, has been afforded to build their foundation and construct their overall rebuild.
That, uh, certainly was not the case under Herb Kohl’s reign and Magic fans are certainly aware of how the Bucks gifted one Tobias Harris in a panic trade deadline move, all in order to claw their way into the playoffs as the eighth seed.
That is not to say Hammond and Weltman are not immune to mistakes as I think their decisions in free agency, specifically when it comes to external additions, have never been their strengths. But for the simple fact that John Hammond and Co. drafted Giannis Antetokounmpo and acquired Khris Middleton via the Brandon Jennings trade in the summer of 2013, those two decisions alone are the biggest reasons why the Bucks stand where they are today.
Adam McGee: There is a lot of Hammond’s influence on the Magic, without a doubt. Although I would be lying if I said that I thought that was all falling on the positive side of what Hammond brings as an exec.
Jordan and I used to affectionately refer to Hammond as “The Gambler”, and that has essentially always been his approach. He loves to take big swings on upside, and part of that process is there will likely always be more moves that do not pan out than those that necessarily will.
That will all prove to be worth it if there’s a Giannis-esque prize waiting for the Magic at some point, but it does require patience, and it will require Hammond and Weltman to get lucky at some point too.
How do you see the series playing out?
Jordan Treske: For as uneasy as it has been watching the Milwaukee Bucks over the last couple of weeks, I have plenty of confidence this will end up in a sweep in favor of the Bucks.
That is not really a criticism of the Orlando Magic as I have seen how well-prepared Steve Clifford-led teams have done in the past, even when the odds were stacked up against them, as it is in this situation.
But I think the injury to Jonathan Isaac is a big blow in terms of how to limit or slow down Giannis Antetokounmpo and it does not help that Aaron Gordon is also dinged up going into the series in that sense as well.
Along with that, I am not sure the Magic have the consistent offensive firepower to really give the Bucks problems, especially the very issues like defending against a strong 3-point shooting team that has hurt them historically. I have no doubt the series will be far from an easy one, and I think it will end up being the kind of series that helps the Bucks to address their issues and reclaim the identity they held for a lot of the season.
Jordan McGee: I am not quite as bullish as Jordan, simply because the Bucks have looked so far off their best and it seems like we have ever-growing evidence that the bubble does add a real layer of unpredictability to proceedings.
I still think the Bucks will prevail, and likely quite comfortably, but there could be a game or two up for grabs along the way. Whether the Magic are able to seize those opportunities without Isaac and given their own recent struggles in the bubble is the key question.
I am picking Bucks in 5.
My thanks to Adam and Jordan for responding to my questions about the Bucks. Be sure to check out their work at Behind The Buck Pass throughout the series and beyond!