If you haven’t yet jumped onto the Bucks’ soaring bandwagon spaceship, this might be a good time to get aboard. And if you still haven’t been to a Milwaukee home game this year, to inelegantly paraphrase basketball bard Bill Shakespeare, now is the week of your bliss-content.
Milwaukee is in the middle of a wonderfully condensed four-game home stand – and it’s the only time the team will have played three times at the BMO Harris Bradley Center in five days until March – that gives the inconsistent but up-and-coming future-owners, currently in sixth place in the East at 10-9, an excellent opportunity to see where they really stand in the NBA.
This could be the Bucks’ most interesting, and potentially important, week of the regular season. On the court and off of it, there will be no shortage of excitement at the Downtown arena, where the basketball and promotions promise a full, fun five days for the franchise.
On a Milwaukee Monday matchup against the Spurs that featured a Milwaukee Originals t-shirt design by Too Much Metal and a special halftime performance from local rapper IshDarrr, the Bucks nearly beat the team with the NBA's third-best record. The Bucks fell, 97-96, but had a chance to win the game on the final shot.
On Tuesday, Antetokounmpo, everyone’s favorite 21-year-old, turned 22. What do you get the Greek Freak that has it all? Well, probably a jump shot, but otherwise he’s pretty much set. As FiveThirtyEight detailed last week, Giannis is uniquely good at almost everything.
He ranks in the top half of qualified NBA players in eight of nine major-component categories of advanced metrics, according to Basketball-Reference.com, and he’s in a height class by himself, in terms of box plus/minus, compared to other guards. He’s recently emerged as a defensive monster, as well, ranking second in the league in steals (2.2 per game) and fifth in blocks (2.2) and becoming a long-armed stalwart at the rim.
After San Antonio skipped town, another Western Conference contender now visits the Bradley Center on Wednesday, with Portland bringing its dynamic backcourt duo to battle Milwaukee. Damian Lillard (27.8 points per game) and C.J. McCollum (21.9) are among the best guards in the league for a Trail Blazers team that is No. 4 in points scored (110.2 per game) and No. 28 in points allowed (112.5). The Bucks and Blazers have split their last 12 matchups going back to 2009.
It will be critical for Milwaukee to get ahead early against Portland; they’re 10-1 after leading at halftime and 8-1 when leading after three quarters. In Saturday’s win over the Nets, the Bucks prevailed despite letting a 16-point third-quarter lead slip away. That was partially thanks to head coach Jason Kidd showing confidence in his players and also being inventive; he had forward Jabari Parker initiating the offense at times in the fourth quarter, playing a two-man game with Antetokounmpo that allowed Parker to be a playmaker.
"I think that was a big game for our growth, just being solid," said John Henson, who scored a team-high 20 points, of beating Brooklyn. "Ask me Wednesday how I feel and I think we’ll have a better gauge of where we are."
Henson has been starting at center, with Greg Monroe coming off the bench, even though the team has had a better plus-minus differential with the latter on the court than the former. Kidd seems to have settled on a relatively consistent 10-man rotation – a starting group of Antetokounmpo, Parker, Henson, Tony Snell and Matthew Dellavedova backed up by second-round rookie Malcolm Brodgon, veteran shooter Jason Terry, mercurial Michael Beasley, steady Mirza Teletovic and Monroe, who’s been very productive but has an enigmatic relationship with Kidd and probably no long-term future in Milwaukee.
On Friday, the Bucks welcome to the Bradley Center for the final game of their homestand the suddenly slumping Hawks, who’ve lost nine of their last 10. Forward Paul Millsap is the best player on a boring team, but the game will serve as a barometer for the Bucks to see if they’re truly among the Eastern Conference’s contenders or still treading water in the lottery-to-low-playoff-seed end of the pool.
The Atlanta game is also a Flashback Friday night, featuring a halftime performance by Montell Jordan, the star R&B singer known for his 1995 hit, "This Is How We Do It." Good times! Fans at the game will be treated to unique ’90s-themed entertainment throughout the night, much in the style of the classic 8-bit video games that soared in popularity during the early part of the decade. The first 10,000 fans will also go home with a complimentary stadium cup and coupon courtesy of Kohl’s.
The Bucks made a major statement (or, statements) in last week’s blowout win over the Cleveland Cavaliers. On a four-game winning streak and with three in five days at home against opponents ranging from championship-caliber to playoff-caliber to East-team-Milwaukee-needs-to-beat-if-it-thinks-its-good, they have a chance this week to make a declaration. Don’t miss it.
Born in Milwaukee but a product of Shorewood High School (go ‘Hounds!) and Northwestern University (go ‘Cats!), Jimmy never knew the schoolboy bliss of cheering for a winning football, basketball or baseball team. So he ditched being a fan in order to cover sports professionally - occasionally objectively, always passionately. He's lived in Chicago, New York and Dallas, but now resides again in his beloved Brew City and is an ardent attacker of the notorious Milwaukee Inferiority Complex.
After interning at print publications like Birds and Blooms (official motto: "America's #1 backyard birding and gardening magazine!"), Sports Illustrated (unofficial motto: "Subscribe and save up to 90% off the cover price!") and The Dallas Morning News (a newspaper!), Jimmy worked for web outlets like CBSSports.com, where he was a Packers beat reporter, and FOX Sports Wisconsin, where he managed digital content. He's a proponent and frequent user of em dashes, parenthetical asides, descriptive appositives and, really, anything that makes his sentences longer and more needlessly complex.
Jimmy appreciates references to late '90s Brewers and Bucks players and is the curator of the unofficial John Jaha Hall of Fame. He also enjoys running, biking and soccer, but isn't too annoying about them. He writes about sports - both mainstream and unconventional - and non-sports, including history, music, food, art and even golf (just kidding!), and welcomes reader suggestions for off-the-beaten-path story ideas.
