I actually watch a lot of Bucks games. This is my impression of them:
[hide]The Bucks understandably get whatever recognition they do get for their defensive work. They were 2nd in defensive efficiency to the Warriors last I checked. They do it with hyper crazy double teaming and trapping of anyone and everyone, super long arms to invade passing lanes of the people trying to get out of it, coked up rotations, and one of the most bench reliant rotations in the league to keep them fresh so they can keep it going all game long. In most games their main guys are topping out at around 30 minutes, and nobody's ever in for really long stretches at one time. And they keep getting better at what they're doing. Anyone who bothers to talk about the Bucks talks about that.
So everything they're doing on offense is going completely under the radar since even their defense barely gets noticed. At the beginning of the year it was more of how far can Knight, Giannis, and Jabari take us, with Bayless off the bench. But even with their stifling defense that wasn't good for any better than a .500 team. As the year progressed, Kidd has hammered ball movement and unselfishness into them along with defense, basically everything he stood for as a player. Now they get a lot more open looks than they used to, and they know how to cash in. Giannis is useless as a 3 point jumpshooter at this point in his career, but he's pretty lonely in that regard. Knight is shooting over 40% from 3, Dudley's at 44% from 3 (who they got a first round pick from the Clippers for taking), Middleton's at 42% from 3, Mayo and Bayless have been about league average, and Ilyasova's historically a sniper but has been cold this season at 31% from 3. Imagine how tough they'd be if they still had Jabari and his 7 foot wingspan to give Kidd another stretch 4 option. They also lost Kendall Marshall for the year who was shooting 39% from 3 and was probably their single best passer. John Henson couldn't shoot a 3 to save his life most likely, but he's being built in that Tyson Chandler mold, is pretty athletic, and has a ridiculous 7'5" wingspan. He's just out there setting endless screens and suddenly he's cutting to the hoop and good luck stopping that lob if he has a clear path.
They play Giannis at the wing positions more than anything else, and let him destroy people by trying to take them to the rim where they can't possibly contain him. He shoots something like 65% near the rim, and since he takes most of his shots there now his overall fg% is over 50 and he's barely 20. A lot of teams have no choice but to double due to his combination of size, quickness, and finishing ability, either up high or in the paint, and he's a good passer out of that. He's hit the midrange jumper well enough when people leave him wide open lately that it's starting to maybe not be ok to leave him wide open on those anymore, but he'll have to keep proving it. They'd rather not play him at the 4 if they can help it, probably because he has no workable 3 pointer at this point in his career to pull bigs out of the paint with. They also have Knight who can create first team offense initially, of course, and Bayless (who has been amazing for them this season) to do it off the bench, as well as Mayo (who I do not like). They also just picked up Gutierrez to come in and play defense and move the offense without having much scoring expected of him. Normally I wouldn't mention such a thing, but with Kidd all of these guys get real minutes and matter. Even Middleton has developed some surprising moves, even if most of them come against slower 4's, and is one of those guys who's a whole lot better than a lot of people realize (he's only 23, long, a good defender 1-4, and a good shooter, so he's getting paid a lot of money soon).
They actually PREFER to have Giannis run the offense over Knight because Knight is more likely to look for his own shot while Giannis isn't. Kidd has compared Knight to Kevin Johnson who he played with in Phoenix, and said that a guy with his skillset should be valued. It's great to have in the holster, but it would be a mistake to expect him to run the offense for long stretches. He'd rather just treat him as a dangerous weapon that can be unleashed. The Bucks have constantly been giving different guys shots to run the offense all season, either because Kidd's unsatisfied or guys are the victim of injury, but also because they just rotate so many guys and try to keep everyone involved. Giannis can walk away with some very Jason Kidd like box scores, though he doesn't get a ton of assists at times because he starts the action that gets kicked around. Kidd wasn't joking when he said he wanted Giannis to be his point guard in preseason.
Looking at positions in the long run, which admittedly Kidd is low on, between Giannis and Jabari they can play together as wings, but only one can be out there as a stretch 4. Jabari's the better shooter and perimeter scorer, so it makes sense to have him drag bigs out of the paint if they'll let him. Giannis is better at taking people to the rim and destroying them there, while he can be largely ignored on the perimeter right now for the most part, so it makes sense to match him up against the smallest player possible offensively. The minutes at 4 usually go to Ilyasova, some Middleton, some Dudley, some Kenyon Martin, and some Johnny O'Bryant garbage/injury time over Giannis. However, the crazy injury situation going on right now with all their centers not named Henson has forced Kidd to use Giannis at the 4 and even the 5 for some lineups recently.
One has to wonder if the insane defensive system has anything to do with all the injuries. Even with the subs going as deep and quick as they are, it's still worth considering with how many there have been.[/hide]