Thursday night was a big occasion for Damian Lillard and the Milwaukee Bucks, as they welcomed the surging Denver Nuggets to Fiserv Forum. Lillard acknowledged some of the recent criticisms of the team head-on in the pregame, and several things he focused on materialized in a positive way as the Bucks won 121-112.
Damian Lillard Admitted The Bucks are an Older Team, Emphasized Transition Offense
Speaking to reporter Taylor Rooks before tip-off, Lillard had some revealing comments about the Bucks play style as of late but also on the season as a whole. The All-Star point guard admitted that the media’s perception of them as an older team is correct, and highlighted some things that the team needs to do to hang with younger squads.
The main focus of Lillard’s comments was highlighting transition offense. Although they are 9th in the league in pace, the Bucks are a lowly 27th in transition possessions per game. Lillard felt that the entire team needed to do a better job of movement on offense, including running the floor in transition as well as cutting and re-locating in the halfcourt. The Bucks are 22nd in possessions involving a player receiving the ball after making a cut to the basket.
After an injection of younger players at the trade deadline, namely Kyle Kuzma and Kevin Porter Jr., the Bucks now have a few more options to run the floor and push the pace in this way.
Inside the NBA’s Kenny Smith felt that Lillard’s insight was correct, and pointed to two areas that the Bucks could improve their pace. Firstly, he mentioned Giannis Antetokounmpo bringing the ball up more, as the long forward can explode into the frontcourt with ease and blow past defenders. Secondly, he felt that players like Lillard, who are not as quick and explosive as Antetokounmpo, should be looking to push the ball via pass, kicking it up ahead to players like Kyle Kuzma.
Lillard’s Words Made an Impact Against Denver
The energy from the entire team was much better against Denver. After a somewhat stale performance against Houston on Tuesday, the second unit in particular was noticeably more active and engaged on offense. After a rotten +/- outing for Kuzma against the Rockets, he had a game-high mark against Denver and was a +19 in 37 minutes. A good chunk of his 16 points came in transition opportunities, and credited his teammates with “finding me early” on such occasions.
As Smith highlighted pregame, Antetokounmpo helped create more pace for the team by pushing the ball, getting downhill with even more frequency than usual. His massive 19 rebounds, 17 of which were defensive, allowed the Greek Freak to start the offense quickly rather than players like Brook Lopez or Taurean Prince needing to outlet to him after securing the ball. The result was 28 points and 7 assists for Antetokounmpo.
Even the aforementioned Lopez was attacking the rim with more regularity. This is evidenced by Milwaukee’s 28 free throw attempts compared to Denver’s 11. The Bucks outscored the Nuggets from the charity stripe 23-9. Damian Lillard certainly did his part as well, scoring 19 points on just 9 shot attempts and adding 4 rebounds and 4 assists. Lillard did have 4 turnovers as well, which is something the veteran needs to continue to work on cleaning out of his game.
Lastly, after having problems scoring in the fourth quarter in recent outings, the Bucks had their strongest stretches of offense in the game in the 4th. They outscored Denver by 6 in the final period and put up 37 points.
Milwaukee beat a strong Denver team who was on a big winning streak, making this an important step for the Bucks. They are back in action Saturday against Dallas.
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