The Play: Coming out of a timeout and holding on to a slim six-point lead with two minutes to go in the fourth quarter, the Milwaukee Bucks played aggressive team defense against the Washington Wizards. With the shot clock winding down, Bradley Beal missed a contested three-pointer out of the corner. The Bucks won, 99-92.
Why It Mattered: With the league heading into the All-Star break, there were only two games played last night, the other being the Oklahoma City Thunder thoroughly dismantling the New Orleans Pelicans, 121-95. While neither the Bucks (22-32) nor the Wizards (23-28) would be playoff teams if the Eastern Conference started today, this game illustrated both the newfound depth of the East — and also Washington’s shortcomings that are keeping the team out of the postseason picture.
I think that both of these teams would decimate the 2012-13 version of the Milwaukee Bucks, who made the playoffs with a 38-44 record. Even though that team was receiving an exciting career year from defensive stalwart Larry Sanders, it’s hard to imagine that a team led by ball-dominant guards Monte Ellis and Brandon Jennings making much of an imprint on the 2015-16 Eastern Conference. (The only player still in Milwaukee from that team is John Henson.) Today’s versions of both the Bucks and the Wizards have incredibly young and considerably talented foundational players. A few seasons ago, that was enough to get a playoff seed in the East. Now, matters of imprecise fit have relegated both teams into the lottery.
The aggressive, full-team defense from the Bucks in the above play showed a glimmer of the potential that fueled the many positive preseason predictions about the team. Milwaukee’s power forward, Giannis Antetokounmpo (#34) easily switched onto Bradley Beal, and often-scapegoated center Greg Monroe (#15) also arrived to provide a tough contest as the shot clock expired. The Bucks are a woeful 26th in the league in Defensive Rating — and yet they won this game with their defense.
About a minute later, with Milwaukee’s lead down to just three, Antetokounmpo and Jabari Parker (#12) leveraged their youth, length and speed to shut down what could’ve been easy points from Washington in the fast break:
When the entire team arrived, they forced Washington into another rushed look.
Monroe himself provided valuable help defense in the game’s deciding moments. Although Monroe’s play below wasn’t exactly an example of textbook verticality, he absolutely disrupted an otherwise open layup attempt from Otto Porter:
Both teams closed the game with essentially four wing players around one conventional center — Monroe for the Bucks, and Nene and Marcin Gortat alternating for the Wizards. This strategy effectively left Wizards power forward Jared Dudley (6’7″) out to dry: he was giving up four inches of height to Antetokounmpo (6’11”), and probably a lot more than that in wingspan:
While I personally think that the and-1 call there was dubious at best, Antetokounmpo was easily able to get the shot off over Dudley for the made basket.
It’s easy to see why both of these teams felt confident in their playoff chances before the season. After all, both teams were in the playoffs last season, and both organizations seemed to be trending upward. Slight imperfections in team construction, though, are enough to knock a team out of the playoffs in today’s Eastern Conference.