NBA: What’s next for the Bucks?

The Milwaukee Bucks have not won a game since our last weekly update. They have lost six straight games after taking down the Philadelphia 76ers in their season opener. Their upcoming schedule doesn’t offer much of a reprieve.

On Thursday, they play the Utah Jazz, which should be a win considering the Jazz are also 1-6 and not as talented as the Bucks. But then, the Bucks fly to New York immediately after their game on Thursday for a Friday night showdown against the Knicks. After taking on the Knicks, the Bucks fly back to Milwaukee for a Sunday matinee against the Boston Celtics to complete a three-games-in-four-days stretch.

Before looking ahead, though, let’s play “Ones” and review the last week of Bucks basketball.

Things are going poorly for the Bucks right now, so there won’t be a lot of positivity in this version of our weekly update, but we’ll start with a play from one of the Bucks’ young players to give a brief glimmer of hope and excitement.

After not being a part of Doc Rivers’ rotation for the first three games of the 2024-25 season, Andre Jackson Jr. found his way into the first half of the Bucks’ fourth game of the season against the Boston Celtics. After playing nine minutes in that game, Jackson has continued to carve out a larger role and ended up playing 25 minutes against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday night. In Jackson’s minutes, the Bucks outscored the Cavaliers by seven points and Jackson was a part of the reserve lineup that started the fourth quarter and helped the Bucks grow their lead before much of the starting lineup returned to try to secure a win.

During the fourth-quarter run, Jackson had an incredible sequence where he blocked a floater as a backside rim protector and then found AJ Green for a triple in transition. But that wasn’t necessarily new. Because of his ridiculous athleticism, Jackson was typically good for a highlight block or dunk every five to 10 minutes during his rookie season.

The finer details have always been more of a struggle for Jackson, especially in half-court offense situations. Jackson has made three of his nine 3-point attempts this season and hit 37 percent from deep on 46 attempts last season, but opponents still treat him as a non-shooting threat. That has made it hard for Jackson to find his way offensively as a wing in the NBA.

Under Rivers, the solution for this has largely been putting Jackson in the dunker spot on the baseline. This was not an unfamiliar setting for Jackson as UConn coach Danny Hurley put him there at times during his final season at Connecticut. But since getting to the NBA, Jackson has almost exclusively looked to screen for 3-point shooters in the corner or make an extra pass to somebody else when he has been played in the dunker.

In the fourth quarter against the Cavaliers, Pat Connaughton dumped it off to Jackson in the dunker, and the second-year wing exploded off two feet to try to throw down a two-handed dunk.

After the game, Jackson told reporters that his dunk attempt was something he knows he needs to do more often when Rivers stations him on the baseline offensively.

“I think I gotta be better, honestly, be more of a scoring threat in the dunker,” Jackson said. “Flash in to open spots when Dame is drawing that second defender. Flash to the front of the rim when Bobby is posted up, just being an option and being available.

“I think a lot of times I’m looking to screen the opposite side or the weak side looking for that skip (pass), but since I talked to Khris (Middleton), he told me that it’s better that I flash. Because if I’m looking for the ball there and doing cuts, that’s going to draw a defender anyway. So, there’s just things that I’m learning, and I’m just going to apply it to the next time out there.”

Becoming a more viable threat in the dunker spot would give Jackson an easier path to becoming a useful offensive player and make it easier for him to stay on the floor. Small moments like the one above could be incredibly valuable for him moving forward.

With Middleton sidelined to start the season, the Bucks have lacked the necessary offensive punch needed to consistently win games. They’ve been poor on defense as well, but with this team’s personnel, their formula for winning was always going to be more about outscoring opponents than shutting them down.

In Middleton’s absence, the Bucks have asked for more from Bobby Portis. To this point, the results have not been positive.

“Just sped up a little bit. We gotta get him back to being comfortable,” Rivers said of Portis’ early-season performance before Monday’s game in Cleveland. “He played so well for us in the second half of last year, and we gotta get him back to that.”

Through seven games, Portis has a usage rate of 21.5 percent, which would be his highest as a member of the Bucks, according to Cleaning the Glass. On top of that, only 52 percent of his made field goals on the season have been assisted, which suggests that Portis is being asked to create for himself at a much higher rate this season. During his first four years with the Bucks, anywhere between 64 and 70 percent of his made baskets were assisted. With a greater ask from a creation standpoint, Portis’ turnover rate — how often he commits a turnover while using a possession — has risen to a career-high 14.3 percent.

When digging deeper into his play type data at Synergy Sports, his change in role becomes clearer.

Last season, 24.6 percent of his usage possessions were spent on post-ups, which put him in the 98th percentile as far as frequency around the league. The only players who used a higher percentage of their possessions on post-ups last season were Boban Marjanovic, Nikola Jokic and Jonas Valanciunas. This season, the Bucks have leaned even further into post-ups for Portis, so 27.1 percent of his usage possessions are spent on post-ups in the early going.

While adding more post-ups is not automatically a bad thing, Portis has been considerably less efficient on those shots to start the season. Last season, Portis averaged .993 points per possession on post-ups, but this season that number has dropped to .886 points per possession.

Overall, Portis is just not shooting the ball as well as normal to start the season. Thus far, the 10-year NBA veteran has knocked down a career-worst 22.2 percent from behind the 3-point line and has made just 39 percent of his long mid-range attempts (2-point shots longer than 14 feet), which would be his lowest percentage on long twos since the 2018-19 season.

A closer look at the heat map of his shots year-over-year helps show how Portis’ shot diet has changed somewhat dramatically in the last five seasons:

In his first season in Milwaukee, Portis knocked down 47.1 percent from behind the 3-point line. That success encouraged former Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer to put Portis in position to get even more looks from 3. In the 2021-22 season, 37 percent of Portis’ shots came behind the 3-point line. The following year, that number dropped to 31 percent, but that figure has declined precipitously in the last two seasons under Adrian Griffin and now Doc Rivers. Last season, only 27 percent of Portis’ shots came behind the 3-point line, and, in the early going of this one, that number has dropped to 21 percent.

Pushing Portis out to the 3-point line wouldn’t magically make Portis more efficient, but it would change his shot profile.

Right now, as shown by Portis’ heat map, the Bucks are regularly tossing Portis the ball on the left side of the floor and letting him go to work on a post-up. That can be effective, but doing it too often leads to Portis’ shots being defended and contested at a much higher rate than if he was moved around the floor and allowed to get some catch-and-shoot opportunities.

No matter how the Bucks choose to use Portis moving forward, they will need to get more production out of him in order to fulfill their potential as an elite offense this season.

The Bucks are committing far too many turnovers this season. That is something that contributed to their losses in the possession battle, a problem we broke down in this space last week. For the Bucks, their problem with turnovers runs even deeper because of the specific type of turnovers they are committing.

Because of their aging personnel and offensive spacing, the Bucks’ live-ball turnovers, like the one from Lillard on Monday night below, almost always go for two points in the other direction.

For those unclear about the difference, a live-ball turnover is a turnover in which the ball remains in play after the turnover has been committed, like a dribble poked away by a defender or a pass tipped to the opposing team. A dead-ball turnover would be something like a charge or an errant pass thrown out of bounds that would require the opposing team to inbound the ball.

Per Cleaning the Glass, opponents are scoring 1.64 points per play on transition possessions that come off a steal against the Bucks. In fact, opponents are currently adding 2.8 points per 100 possessions through transition plays off steals against the Bucks. That figure ties them with the Sacramento Kings and Atlanta Hawks for third-worst in the NBA in the category.

For example, against the Cavaliers on Monday, Lillard committed eight turnovers, five which were live-ball turnovers. Four of those five led to a dunk or lay-up in transition, and the fifth would have also been a dunk or a lay-up without a non-shooting foul to prevent a shot attempt.

The Bucks cannot play offense to not commit turnovers. That would lead to stilted, uncreative and, likely, ineffective offense. There is always going to be inherent risk in attempting to drive to the basket and make plays, but the Bucks have to do a better job limiting their turnovers. It is the best way for both their offense and defense to improve moving forward.