Bucks biggest questions coming out of the All-Star break: Health, seeding and rotations

(Editor’s note: Shortly after this story was published, Bucks forward Bobby Portis was suspended 25 games for violating the NBA’s anti-drug policy. The story has been updated to reflect that development.)

As Milwaukee Bucks head coach Doc Rivers met reporters on Wednesday following the first practice after the All-Star break, he cracked that vacation was over and that it was time for everyone to get back to work.

While he was speaking directly to the gathered media, he meant the same for his team. After a seven-day break, they’re back to work Thursday against the LA Clippers.

With 29 regular-season games remaining, the Bucks have quite a bit of work left to do.

Before the season, Rivers told reporters that true championship contenders, which Milwaukee wants to be, tend to be top 10 in both offense and defense. Exiting the All-Star break, the Bucks are 13th in offensive rating, scoring 113.6 points per 100 possessions, and 11th in defensive rating, allowing 112.4 points per 100 possessions. Their plus-1.2 net rating is good for 11th in the NBA, and their 29-24 record has them fifth in the Eastern Conference.

Their goals are still obtainable, but, as Rivers said, it’s time to get back to work. With that in mind, here are the three biggest questions as the team comes out of the All-Star break.

Can they stay healthy?

Giannis Antetokounmpo spoke with reporters on Wednesday for the first time since he was scratched with left calf tightness moments before tip-off in Charlotte on Feb. 5. He missed the final six games before the All-Star break.

“I’ve said this this year, I want to be smart,” Antetokounmpo said. “One of my goals is to be available for the playoffs. Obviously, we are (29) games away, that’s a long time. But at the end of the day, my main focus is to take care of my body, be smart and I tried.

“I tried to play, but I still felt that discomfort the day after Charlotte, so I think it was smart to take a few days off going into the rehab protocol, take care of my body, get my calf right and get back healthy.”

Last season, Antetokounmpo missed the Bucks’ first-round series against the Indiana Pacers with a left soleus (calf) strain. A left calf strain is what kept out the Bucks’ superstar forward before the All-Star break. When asked if suffering the same injury scared him or made him more worried, the 30-year-old forward explained it allowed him to showcase his growth.

“Nothing scary, but I’m very aware of my body,” Antetokounmpo said. “I kind of felt the same, I kind of had the same feeling I had and felt the same pain I had before I got hurt last year (vs. Boston on April 9). I didn’t get hurt at the spot, that wasn’t the first time I felt that. I felt it days prior to that, maybe like a week or two prior to that.

“And then you overcompensate or you keep on playing and you’re like, ‘OK, it’s just going to be tight, it’s going to be stiff. I’m going to play through it.’ But I didn’t. I wasn’t able to play through it and I got hurt, so I kind of had the same feeling and I’m smarter. I don’t want to be in the same position. So me and the team thought it would be the best idea to take a few games off, get it right, get back healthy.”

Antetokounmpo learning such a lesson about his body and his availability is valuable, but injuries have been a problem for the Bucks since Rivers took over as head coach in Denver last season on Jan. 29, 2024.

Rivers has been at the helm for 89 regular-season games. During that time:

• Former Bucks wing Khris Middleton appeared in 39 of a possible 85 regular-season games (45.9 percent).
• Damian Lillard has appeared in 74 regular-season games (83 percent) and missed two playoff games while attempting to play through an injury in last year’s first-round upset to the Indiana Pacers.
• Antetokounmpo has appeared in 70 regular season games (78.6 percent) and missed the Bucks’ entire first-round loss.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a real answer to this question. Any injuries or absences might occur in the final 29 games of this season.

“We were cautious last year, as far as I know, and it didn’t work,” Rivers said on Feb. 9, when asked if sitting Antetokounmpo for the final three games before the 2025 All-Star Game had anything to do with a more cautious approach to injuries this season. “Injuries are injuries. You can’t do anything (about it).

“Guys get injured, they do. You still just have to be smart. You also have to play them the right amount as well, or they get injured when they play because they haven’t played enough. There’s a fine line, and we’re probably walking it right now.”

For the Bucks to reach their potential, they are going to need to play as many of their final 29 games together as possible. They have new players to integrate into rotations and need to reach new levels on both ends of the floor. Staying healthy and getting as many reps as possible will be a big part of getting ready for the postseason.

Can they catch any of the top four seeds?

As it stands, the Bucks are the East’s fifth seed, and they would start the playoffs on the road against the Indiana Pacers, a rematch from last season’s playoffs. That series ended in disappointment. If Milwaukee remains the fifth seed, it would be the first time the Bucks would go on the road for a first-round playoff series since 2018, when they lost to the Boston Celtics in seven games with Joe Prunty at the helm following the midseason firing of Jason Kidd.

“I’m not going to go and look at it,” Rivers said of the Bucks trying to get out of fifth in the East to host a first-round playoff series. “You told me what seed (we are right now), I didn’t know. That’s how much I’m looking at it. I just know we want it, and if we win enough games, we’ll get it.”

The Bucks have recovered well from their terrible 2-8 start to get to fifth place. While that is a convenient shorthand, this season can more accurately be described using three time periods.

With a win over the Philadelphia 76ers on Jan. 19, the Bucks moved to 24-17, pulling them within two games of the third-place New York Knicks, the closest they’ve been to third in the East this season. After that win, they reached their dog days portion of the schedule with a three-day stop in New Orleans without a game before posting a 5-7 record in their final 12 games before the All-Star break.

Bobby Portis Jr. missed six of the 12 games before the break, mourning the death of his grandmother. Antetokounmpo missed the final six games before the break. With only one of their missed games overlapping, the Bucks’ three big-man rotation was incomplete over their last 12 games. That led to Rivers often overextending Brook Lopez and looking for answers.

During that time, the Bucks played their worst defense of the season. They struggled at the point of attack and surrendered too many points in the paint, but Rivers thought there may have been positives to take from those struggles to close out the pre-All-Star portion of their schedule, such as getting new acquisitions Kyle Kuzma and Kevin Porter Jr. playing time.

“We had guys out,” Rivers said. “We still lost a couple of games with everybody, but a lot of that was with Giannis out. You don’t ever want Giannis out — and definitely don’t want Giannis and Dame out. But I will say that it probably allowed us to play guys, the new guys, more minutes.”

If the Bucks have any hope of putting themselves back in position to host a home playoff series, they will need to stay healthy and recapture the level of focus, intensity and execution they used during their 22-9 stretch between November and January.

What is the rotation going to look like?

At the trade deadline, the Bucks sent out Middleton, Delon Wright, MarJon Beauchamp and AJ Johnson and added Kuzma, Porter Jr. and Jericho Sims. Middleton was the only player in the group receiving regular playing time. Middleton was not playing a full starter’s role (just 23.2 minutes per game) and not playing every night. That fact creates serious questions about Rivers’ rotations as the team returns from the All-Star break.

While Horst said he envisioned Sims as a fourth big in a three-big rotation, Rivers has talked about using both Kuzma and Porter Jr. as rotation pieces. As referenced at the deadline, Rivers has used a nine-man rotation in 83 percent of the Bucks’ non-blowout games this season, according to data from Sportradar.

After the trade deadline, here are the Bucks’ rotation players from before the trade deadline with new rotation players added:

• Point guard: Damian Lillard, Kevin Porter Jr., Ryan Rollins
• Shooting guard: Andre Jackson Jr., Gary Trent Jr., AJ Green
• Small forward: Kyle Kuzma, Taurean Prince
• Power forward: Giannis Antetokounmpo
• Center: Brook Lopez, Bobby Portis*

While Portis’ suspension removes one of the players from Rivers’ rotation, the same questions remain. Rivers has a multitude of options for what appears to be a relatively static nine-man rotation.

“It will figure itself out,” Rivers said. “One thing I always tell people with the rotation: I don’t make the rotation, the players do. It’s by how they play, how they perform, how they compete, how they work together and it will figure itself.

“We have eyes on it. We work on it every day. Our goal is to find the right group to play at the right time, and that’s the playoffs and at the end of every game.”

One of the changes could be simple.

If the Bucks want Porter to play a larger role, he can just take over for Rollins. The Bucks two-way guard capably filled the backup point guard role for the Bucks when Wright struggled to find his footing, but it was a small role. At the All-Star break, Lillard was eighth in the NBA at 36.5 minutes per game, an impressive feat for the 34-year-old point guard in his 13th NBA season.

But after potentially making that one simple tweak to the rotation, Rivers will still be faced with difficult questions about how he uses the nine remaining players to build out a rotation, even if those questions have changed slightly because of Portis’ suspension.

Rivers also admitted he sees the 29-year-old forward as a better option than Sims in the Bucks’ rotation of bigs.

So, do the Bucks now try to use most of Kuzma’s 30-plus minutes per game at power forward to account for Portis’ absence? Or do they insert Sims into the big-man rotation and use Kuzma at small forward as originally planned?

No matter what he decides, Rivers has big decisions in front of him as the Bucks try to figure out how to play 25 of the final 29 regular-season games without Portis and also prepare themselves for a postseason that will likely see Portis return in a larger role.

Sign up to get The Bounce, the essential NBA newsletter from Zach Harper and The Athletic staff, delivered free to your inbox.

(Photo of Giannis Antetokounmpo and Doc Rivers: Michael McLoone / Imagn Images)