What Dame Time means for Bucks Fans

The Milwaukee Bucks made their bones on defense. They’ve had a top-five defense in three of the last five years, and they roster a former Defensive Player of the Year in Giannis Antetokounmpo as well as last year’s DPoY runner up in Brook Lopez. But with the hiring of new coach Adrian Griffin, the focus coming into the 2023-24 season has been on revamping the offense. One week before the beginning of training camp, Jon Horst and the Bucks can say “mission accomplished” after trading with the Portland Trail Blazers for Damian Lillard. 

Lillard recorded, at least statistically, the best offensive season in the NBA last year.  

Milwaukee’s offense was far from poor last season. It averaged 115.9 points per 100 possessions, which was actually an improvement on the year prior. But whereas Milwaukee ranked fifth on the offensive end in 2021-22, that fell to 14th despite averaging a higher rate of points. While Milwaukee did improve, the league improved even more over the same time period.

If the NBA is a galaxy hurtling in the distance of space, propelled ever forward with the addition of every talented rookie, with every skill improvement from every player across the league, then Lillard is Milwaukee’s Neil Armstrong, ensuring his team will accelerate into the unknown. It helps that the partnership with Antetokounmpo is one for which Lillard has publicly opined.

The areas in which Milwaukee needed help on the offensive end are ones that Lillard specifically addresses. He is talented in virtually every area, but his skills are much-needed in Milwaukee, thus giving even more value to his already valuable portfolio. He is a league leader in a variety of situations.

Lillard’s pick-and-roll acumen was driven largely by his pull-up shooting. Lillard, alongside Steph Curry and James Harden, are the forefathers of the pull-up 3-point revolution. But Lillard, more than anyone else, is comfortable taking shots from several feet behind the 3-point line.

“If [Lillard is] not top one, [he’s the] top two shooter in the league,” said Antetokounmpo on Media Day.

Partially as a result of his shooting talent, opponents switched less frequently against him than anyone else who ran at least 1000 picks, doing so in only 13.25 percent of picks. That was because when they did switch, Lillard scored 1.21 points per chance, by far the best among any player who faced at least 200 switches last year, according to Second Spectrum. He had an effective field goal (eFG) percentage of 62.8 when shooting against switches. As a point of comparison, the highest season-long eFG percentage Antetokunmpo has ever achieved in his career is 60.0. Nor, for example, did Shaquille O’Neal ever average an eFG percentage of 62.8 or higher until his final season, when he hardly played. 

If putting an offensive player into a situation in which he becomes more efficient than Giannis or prime Shaq, it’s no wonder opponents switch against Lillard so rarely.

The distance shooting is helpful, of course; but equally significant is that Lillard scored 1.346 points per chance when ending a drive with a shot at the basket, according to Second Spectrum. That was the sixth-best mark in the league. He is phenomenal at turning the corner, using his quick-twitch athleticism, outrageous shin angles, and hit-ahead dribbling to rocket into the lane -- particularly when faced with a big defender after a switch. 

So what did opponents do when defending Lillard? Well, he was blitzed the second-most frequently, at 13.11 percent. The average pick and roll last year saw a switch 25 percent of the time and a blitz only 3 percent of the time, according to Second Spectrum. That Lillard saw the two coverages equally often -- which wasn’t true for any other player -- is preposterous.

At the very least, blitzing forced the ball out of Lillard’s hands. And Portland scored ‘only’ 1.153 per chance in such moments, the fourth-highest rate in the league among players who were blitzed in at least 100 picks. Defenses contorted themselves in defending Lillard. 

Lillard knows defenses will have trouble doing that now. 

“My whole career has been off-the-dribble threes, pick-and-roll pull-up threes, contested, double-teams, traps,” he said on Media Day. “I'm just curious to see how that can be possible with a player as dominant as [Antetokounmpo] is… I’m excited to be freed up.”

To that point, when Lillard is blitzed, the ball will likely funnel directly to Antetokounmpo, the league’s best at finishing a drive with a dunk. He finished 54 drives with dunks last year, almost twice as many as second place.

“He’s going to have the kind of opportunities that I think he hasn’t had,” said Lillard of his partnership with Antetokounmpo.

So now the league’s best player at forcing blitzes plays alongside the league’s best player at punishing them. Here’s our best-guess recreation at what such moments might look like:

“How do you defend it?” asked Lillard. “I can’t imagine [defenses] wanting him to have the ball at the free-throw line coming downhill with an advantage.”

Lillard with the ball in his hands will be an extraordinary weapon. If Antetokounmpo is away from the ball, a stampede cut after Lillard draws the defense should result in a dunk, free throws, or open jumper for a teammate every time. If Antetokounmpo screens for Lillard, Milwaukee has built its roster so that every other player on the floor will be a shooting threat, giving Lillard and Antetokounmpo as much time and space as possible to dance. Defenders can’t switch or blitz. If they go under, Lillard will rain fire from deep. If they go over, Antetokounmpo will be left alone on the short roll, where he was one of the most dangerous screeners in the game of basketball last season, scoring 1.145 points per chance, per Second Spectrum.

The duo could be the most dangerous pick-and-roll combination in the league.

There will be no good options for defenses in such circumstances, and Milwaukee will draw such defensive attention to the pick in the middle of the floor that it will see its frequency of corner 3-pointers from role players skyrocket. Milwaukee drew the sixth-lowest rate of tags out of pick and rolls last year, meaning defenses got away with not bringing extra help from the corners. That won’t be tenable this season. Still, last year, Milwaukee attempted the seventh-highest rate of corner triples. It could lead the league this year. 

Milwaukee will now roster two of the seven players who received the most double-teams per game last year. The spacing benefits for everyone other than Lillard and Antetokounmpo should be enormous. Last year, the Bucks attempted the fifth-highest rate of heavily contested catch-and-shoot triples in the league while taking the fourth-lowest rate of uncontested or lightly contested paint shots last year. The quality of those looks across the board will improve as a result of the defensive attention Lillard will draw. With Lillard stretching defenses well beyond the arc, a simple skip pass will put defenses in rotation. Milwaukee’s stable of shooters and cutters will feast on the carcass of opposing defenses. 

Khris Midddleton, especially, should see his efficiency bump up. Middleton has a well-earned reputation as a tough-shot maker, and because of his responsibilities with the Bucks, he has had one of the toughest shot diets in the league; his shot quality last year was the 31st-hardest in the league, with an expected eFG percentage of 43.86, according to Second Spectrum. He attempted only 18 uncontested shots in all of 2022-23.

With Lillard around to force issues and take difficult shots -- he had the 11th-hardest shot quality in the league last year -- Middleton will see more open triples and fewer doubles in the middle of the floor. He could be the most overqualified third option in the league this upcoming season.

Milwaukee’s first-shot half-court offense was a relative weakness this past season. It scored 99.6 points per 100 half-court possessions, excluding offensive rebounds. That was a solid mark, slightly above league average, but Milwaukee was generally exceptional elsewhere. Yet that is where Lillard’s superpower will be most felt. Lillard is floor-warping  as a shooter, pick-and-roll operator, isolator, and driver -- all of which occur in the half-court. As a result, the Blazers were 11.6 points per 100 half-court possessions better with Lillard on the court than off, once again excluding offensive rebounds. That was the seventh-highest such mark in the league, far above any Buck last season. 

If Milwaukee’s half-court offense sees the boons that it should, the Bucks will have no weakness. It has its clutch closer -- Lillard has the most (25) game-winning or -tying shots in the last 10 seconds of the game since joining the league. It has its half-court operator who will almost always ensure the Bucks get a good shot; and, even when it doesn’t, Lillard will make sure the Bucks make the tough ones regardless. The Bucks have a player who will help the team play faster and more dynamic -- while also ensuring they will succeed when they grind into the stasis of isolation. It will be easy for Griffin to implement his offensive philosophy, and he’ll be insulated by Lillard’s tough shot-making when plays grind to a halt.

The last time the Bucks traded for a veteran and decorated point guard before the season began, they won the championship. That of course came in 2020-21, when the Bucks traded for Jrue Holiday. Now Holiday is headed to Boston. The champion point guard will be missed, but the parallelism between that first Holiday trade and this second one cannot be missed. 

It was the Roman author Vegetius who wrote “Si vis pacem, para bellum,” which translates to “if you desire peace, prepare for war.” The Bucks desire a peaceful offensive existence, one marked by open shots coming out of dynamic sets. And to ensure such a peaceful offense, they have traded for one of the players most singularly equipped to thrive in the muck. Now Milwaukee will have no weakness. And if all goes to plan, its opponents shall know no peace.