The Milwaukee Bucks are 2-2 so far this season, and there has been a common dominator in all of their four games this season. That dominator is a very bad defense. They have the third-worst defense in the NBA this season giving up 122.0 points per game.
For a team with high expectations this season, they are going to need to play better defense throughout the course of the season. Milwaukee has the ninth-best offense in the NBA through four games, averaging 115.3 points per game. The Bucks need to fix the defense in a hurry, or they will continue to have problems throughout the year.
The Milwaukee Bucks’s biggest competitor in the Eastern Conference is the Boston Celtics. Boston’s defense is better than Milwaukee’s by a mile. Boston has the eighth-best defense in the NBA so far this season at just giving up 106.5 PPG.
Do you want to know why that is the case? It is because the Celtics have Jrue Holiday on the roster and the Milwaukee Bucks no longer. This was one of the risks that Milwaukee was taking when they traded him away to the Portland Trail Blazers at first in the three-team trade for Damian Lillard, which also involved the Phoenix Suns.
The Milwaukee Bucks Defense Needs to Improve
Milwaukee has to have a better defense moving forward, and luckily, there are still 78 games to go to fix it. Damian Lillard was never a good defender throughout his NBA career. Jrue Holiday is already missed big time, and this was a swing that general manager Jon Horst made during the offseason. It could backfire later this season, but time is going to tell.
The only other two teams that have a worse defense than the Milwaukee Bucks this season are the Indiana Pacers, who are giving up 125.0 points per game, and the Washington Wizards, who are giving up 126.3 points per game. Indiana could be a playoff team this season, and Washington is going to be one of the worst teams in the NBA this season.
Milwaukee does have one of the better defensive players in the NBA, with Giannis Antetokounmpo and Brook Lopez as a rim protector. After that, head coach AJ Griffin needs to devise a plan to make this team’s defense better, and the defense was good under former coach Mike Budenholzer, who was fired during the offseason.
