Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks went 4-0 against the Bulls in the 2021-22 regular season.
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Used to be, throngs of Chicago fans would make the drive up I-94 and take over the Bradley Center, turning Milwaukee home games into roadies in this rivalry. That doesn’t happen now that the Bucks are the superior team. Besides, the way Chicago has been playing, some of its fans might have brought their boos with them.
One of the NBA’s happiest storylines of the early season — the resurgent Bulls, who are playoff-bound for the first time since 2017 — has turned dour. Injuries to Lonzo Ball and Patrick Williams in particular, plus Zach LaVine and Alex Caruso at various times, undercut a lot of Chicago’s early work. As recently as Feb. 24, the Bulls were 39-21 and perched atop the Eastern Conference. Since then, a 7-15 elevator shaft that left them sixth. The fall exposed flaws that were there from the start, as far as size (28th in rebounding) and bench.
After a grueling regular season, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Milwaukee have what appears to be a favorable playoff road.
The Bucks never nosedived in the regular season but they never quite took off either. The 2021-22 schedule seemed to be about managing their post-NBA championship honeymoon, pointing toward the postseason for a healthy, relatively rested encore. And that’s pretty much where Milwaukee is at, with center Brook Lopez back after sitting out 69 games after opening night and Giannis Antetokounmpo again playing like a two-way Kia MVP favorite in his highest scoring (29.9 ppg) and most efficient season yet.
Milwaukee went 15-6 after All-Star weekend and also swept Chicago 4-0 this season, contributing to the Bulls’ 2-21 record against the league’s Top 4 seeds in both conferences. It’s hard to find reasons any of this might change.
Three things to watch
1. Jrue Holiday’s defense. The Bucks’ defense over the last two months of the season wasn’t just below their usual standards, it was below most everyone’s. After the All-Star break, they ranked 20th in defensive rating, 18th in opponents’ field-goal percentage and 28th in foes’ 3-point percentage. Having Brook Lopez back should help and Antetokounmpo might be the league’s best help defender, but Milwaukee’s defense relies first and foremost on guard Jrue Holiday. There isn’t anyone on Chicago’s roster he cannot defend.
2. DeMar DeRozan’s offense. The veteran swingman was hearing Top 5 MVP chatter until the Bulls’ swoon. His team goes nowhere if he’s not leading them. DeRozan upped his scoring from 27.9 ppg overall to 31.3 in the four meetings with Milwaukee, but he had to work harder, his accuracy dropping from 50.4% to 47.9% and his shot attempts rising from 20.2 to 24.3.
3. Extracurriculars. There’s juice in this series no matter which way it swings or however lopsided. The last time these teams faced each other in the postseason, in 2015 in the first round, Chicago destroyed the Bucks 120-66 in the Game 6 clincher. (Young Giannis tackled Mike Dunleavy into the stands to end his afternoon early.) Currently, there still is bad blood lingering — from the Bulls’ fan base at least — toward Grayson Allen, the Bucks guard who cost Caruso 22 games with a broken wrist thanks to his mid-air Flagrant 2. If the series tilts too quickly in (wink, wink) one team’s favor, chippiness could ensue.
Number to know
1 — The Bucks are the only team that ranked in the top eight in both 3-point percentage (36.6%, fifth) and the percentage of their shots that came from 3-point range (43.0%, sixth). We don’t necessarily think of the Bucks as a jump-shooting team, but only the Dallas Mavericks (42.7%) took a greater percentage of their shots from outside the paint than Milwaukee (43.1%). Things were similar on the other end of the floor, with Milwaukee allowing the most 3-pointers (14.5 per game) for the fourth straight season.
In regard to 3-point volume on both ends of the floor, the Bulls were the anti-Bucks, taking only 33.2% of their shots (the league’s lowest rate) and allowing their opponents to take only 36.5% of their shots (the league’s second lowest opponent rate) from 3-point range. In the regular season series, the 3-point numbers tilted more toward those of the Bulls, with the two teams combining to take less than 36% of their shots from beyond the arc. But in sweeping the four games, the Bucks outscored the Bulls 231-153 (by 19.5 points per game) in the restricted area or at the free throw line.
— John Schuhmann
The pick
Given the way the Bulls finished the regular season, they’re cranky. They realize that if they can’t actually succeed as spoilers, they can rough up Milwaukee for six or seven games and make it harder for the reigning champs to defend their title. … Well, actually they can’t. Any roughing up better come early because this series will be short. Bucks in 4.
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Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA since 1980. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on Twitter.
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