One trend that has perhaps been underdiscussed in these always-evolving NBA Finals: The Milwaukee Bucks are one win from the title in large part because their offense has been really, really good.
The Bucks in the Finals have poured in 117.7 points per 100 possessions, a mark that would have edged the Brooklyn Nets for No. 1 in the regular season. The ugliness of some of Milwaukee's meandering half-court possessions obscures how lethal this team can be when it gets rolling.
The easiest path to that is to not play in the half court at all, and a big theme in this series has been Milwaukee's ability to get out in transition. The Bucks aren't running quite as often as they did in the regular season -- when they played in transition more than any team, per Cleaning The Glass -- but they are still doing so at an above-average rate, and that's a win considering the Phoenix Suns were among the very best at keeping teams out of transition.
And the Bucks are scoring just about every time they hit the open floor: 152.9 points per 100 transition chances, according to Cleaning The Glass. The No. 1 team in the regular season by that measure finished at 133.8. Yowza. This is one of the subtler ways Phoenix's lack of size hurts. Deandre Ayton is the only guy in the Suns' rotation even resembling a big man, and he plays near the rim on offense -- meaning he is rarely back early as a deterrent. No other Sun can make Giannis Antetokounmpo at full throttle pause to think for one second.
The Suns have been a little lax with their floor balance and ball control, but the Bucks are opportunistic; they hunt transition chances with constant urgency.
Behind some hot shooting and smart adjustments from Mike Budenholzer in Game 5, Milwaukee's half-court offense -- its weak spot in past playoffs -- is up to about league-average production for the series, per Cleaning The Glass. The Bucks doing that against one of the league's nastiest half-court defenses is almost cause for a parade.
Milwaukee brutalizing Phoenix on the offensive glass has boosted that half-court scoring figure by turning some initially listless possessions into points. Milwaukee has needed all this offense, because the Suns have scored 115.5 points per 100 possessions -- a hair below their sixth-ranked figure in the regular season. Their effective field goal percentage for the series would have ranked No. 2 behind the Nets; it bumped even higher over Games 3, 4, and 5 -- all Phoenix losses. Phoenix is shooting the bejesus out of it.
The Suns have had to, because, as I noted before Game 5, the Bucks have methodically turned this series into a math problem the Suns can't win. The possession battle is a rout for the Bucks. They are getting more offensive boards and free throws. And their defense is scrunching the Suns' offense toward the midrange to a dangerous extreme. Phoenix is getting to the rim at a league-worst rate, and it has attempted just 30 corner 3s -- six per game, down from its regular-season average of 10. Seventeen of those 30 came in Game 2. In the four other games, the Bucks have basically erased the corners from the court.
It's great and not super shocking that Phoenix is shooting so well; the Suns consciously built around two elite shot-makers in Devin Booker and Chris Paul. It's not great that the Suns have to shoot well -- and almost preposterously well -- to have any chance to win. The Bucks have a margin for so-so shooting; the Suns don't.
Starting in Game 3, the Bucks have found the right mix of defenses to make the Suns uncomfortable. When Brook Lopez is on the floor, the Bucks play a slightly more aggressive version of their base pick-and-roll defense: Lopez ventures out to deter an easy jumper, but not so high as to approximate any sort of trap. He has mostly been able to stay in front of Booker and Paul, and then pivot back to Ayton in time to meet Ayton outside the block-charge circle -- forcing tough hooks and floaters.
Booker slithered by Lopez once in Game 5 when Ayton set his pick extra high, but Lopez still managed to contest Booker's layup:
The Suns might be able to find traction getting even more creative with where Ayton sets his picks -- sometimes close to midcourt; sometimes at the foul line. (Ayton is also smart about flipping the direction of his pick at the last second.) Booker might benefit from more instant head-down driving, and less pulling back to map the floor. Regardless: Lopez has hung in since the Bucks ditched Game 1's switch-heavy gambit.
When Lopez is off the floor, the Bucks switch everything. They don't seem all that concerned with handing Booker or Paul the Pat Connaughton matchup both are seeking. An adjustment in how Milwaukee's other four defenders react when the Suns get Connaughton on an island is one reason the Bucks have flipped the momentum in these Finals.
In the first two games, Booker and Paul turned some of these predatory isolations into layups for themselves and kickout 3s:
That is probably an overreaction from Jrue Holiday considering Frank Kaminsky and Torrey Craig are on the same side, but you can understand Holiday fearing Booker will just roast Lopez.
One Milwaukee tweak was to stop switching with Lopez. Connaughton at least has a shot of sticking close enough to Paul and Booker as to not require emergency help -- or at least not inspire the fear in his teammates that such help might be required.
As the series has worn on, more and more of the Booker-versus-Connaughton isolations have looked like this:
Connaughton hangs on Booker's inside shoulder. P.J. Tucker gives the appearance of maybe, possibly helping, but he keeps one foot outside the paint -- and his momentum primed to close out onto Mikal Bridges. Khris Middleton and Jeff Teague stay more or less in Booker's passing lanes.
They do that because of the one big structural reality undergirding the entire scheme: Antetokounmpo looms as the last line of defense on Ayton near the basket. Antetokounmpo has already flashed his ability (rather spectacularly) in this series to show help and recover onto Ayton. Having internalized that, the rest of the Bucks stay home. Booker has no easy pass.
Here's Paul getting the same general treatment, with Lopez playing the role of Antetokounmpo:
The numbers are stark. In the regular season and playoffs pre-Finals combined, Booker averaged 9.5 isolations per 100 possessions, according to Second Spectrum. He shot on about 65% of his isolations that directly led to the end of any Suns possession. He dished dimes on about 8% of those plays.
In the Finals, Booker is isolating about 16.6 times per 100 possessions. Since Game 2, his shot rate is up to 84% and his assist rate is down to 3%, per Second Spectrum. For the series, Booker isolations that have led directly to the end of Phoenix possessions have produced about 1.2 points per possession -- a huge number, and one that includes shots that come via Booker's kickout passes.
But since Game 2, that figure is down to 1.031 -- manageable for the Bucks, and reflective to some degree of how those kickout passes have vanished. The Suns had only 27 potential assists in Game 5, their lowest figure in any game this season, per Second Spectrum.
So what can the Suns do? Taking Ayton out in favor of another shooter is obviously not an option; Ayton logged 45 minutes in Game 5, and you felt his absence in the other three.
Switching up the geometry of the floor might help:
The Suns slot three shooters on the right so that only Ayton is on the left side -- allowing him to slide back toward the corner, clearing room for Booker's drive. Ayton is a threat to cut here, either along the baseline or looping around Booker toward the middle of the paint. Booker also goes quickly after waving Ayton away.
Booker did well attacking Connaughton from the wings, driving baseline, drawing help, and unlocking some corner-to-corner passes for 3s.
Booker did miss a few -- and really just a few -- available passes:
The staggered screens -- with Ayton and then Cameron Johnson screening for Booker -- makes it so the switching-everything scheme ends with Antetokounmpo along the arc instead of near the basket. Last-line-of-defense duty falls to Tucker, a very good defender but not nearly the rim protector Antetokounmpo is. Perhaps that's why Holiday scrambles in much further from the corner shooter -- Cameron Payne here -- than equivalent defenders on other Booker isos. Booker has kickout options here.
But even that pass must feel dicier to Booker than it looks to us. Antetokounmpo might not be near the rim, but he is between Payne and Johnson -- and few defenders are capable of guarding as much space as Antetokounmpo.
And that's the rub: If you hunt Connaughton, you leave an army of long, smart, and athletic defenders behind him. (The same is true, though to a lesser degree, when the Suns hunt Bobby Portis -- who has been solid on switches for large chunks of this series.)
One counter might be to hunt Connaughton a little less, and have Ayton screen for Booker and Paul -- yanking Antetokounmpo (almost always defending Ayton when Lopez is off the floor) into the central action. It might seem paradoxical to want Antetokounmpo hounding Booker, and it's not a fail-safe to lean on over and over. But if Antetokounmpo is on Booker, he's not patrolling the rim.
He's also not on Ayton anymore, and the Suns might be able to find Ayton for lobs and quick-seal post-ups:
Ayton can mix things up by slipping out of picks before really setting them -- getting ahead of the switches. If Phoenix's ball handlers know he is going to do that -- if they act in sync -- they will be ready to hit Ayton before the defense converges.
When Antetokounmpo does switch off of Ayton -- and onto the ball -- the Bucks have had Tucker dart inside and rescue whatever smaller defender is stuck jostling with Ayton. Tucker has to cover a lot of ground, leaving some openings waiting to be exploited:
Tucker straying so far creates a 3-on-2 on the weak side for Phoenix. That is ripe for cuts, flare screens, and other trickery that can pry open good looks.
But those two Milwaukee defenders are really good. They anticipate those tricks, and know how to rotate in concert with Tucker -- how to navigate wide spaces without conceding the most dangerous passes or highest-efficiency shots.
It's easy to say Phoenix should spice things up instead of getting bogged down in isolation basketball: keep moving, set more ball screens, run split actions off the ball (when two teammates screen for each other and veer off in random directions), and continue with its sets as if facing a normal defense and not a switch-everything vise grip. The Suns should do all those things!
But elite switching defenses have a way of squeezing that verve out of you -- of making all that motion seem pointless and exhausting.
Milwaukee's offense has had euphoric ups and troubling swoons in the Budenholzer era, including in these playoffs, but its defense has been constant. If the Bucks have a mediocre scoring night after a sizzling first five games, that defense might be good enough to carry them across the finish line.