From Deep: Giannis Antetokounmpo’s Bucks are setting out to finish what they started

If the Milwaukee Bucks feel like they never really got to defend their title, that’s understandable. Jordan Nwora started more games (13) than Brook Lopez (11) in the regular season, and Khris Middleton sprained his MCL in the second game of the playoffs. 

Without Lopez, the Bucks had the third-best offense in the NBA but never quite felt like themselves. They fell to 14th on defense, and Giannis Antetokounmpo played center for about as many minutes as he had in his previous eight seasons combined.

Without Middleton, Milwaukee almost advanced to the conference finals. It lost a double-digit lead late in the third quarter in Game 4 of its second-round series against the Boston Celtics, and it came up short when it had a chance to clinch at home in Game 6. After the Bucks’ season ended in Game 7 with their worst offensive showing of the year, Jrue Holiday said they “definitely could’ve used him.”

There were familiar themes in that series. In the Bucks’ wins, they dominated the offensive glass and feasted in transition. In their losses, they shot terribly from 3-point range. In Game 7, they continually left Celtics forward Grant Williams open on the perimeter, betting that he would either miss 3s or turn them down. Williams sank seven shots from outside, and the Bucks lost that bet in historic fashion.

Unlike prior playoff defeats, though, no existential reckoning followed. The Bucks were short on firepower without Middleton, and they’d already stamped themselves champions. You had to be pretty deep in Bucks Twitter to find serious criticism of coach Mike Budenholzer, and Gilbert Arenas is the only person still nitpicking Antetokounmpo’s game.

For all of the ways that Milwaukee evolved in its championship season, it has never so much tried to hide its flaws as it has endeavored to make up for them. The Bucks know their halfcourt offense is not nearly as pretty as the Golden State Warriors’, and they know they’re going to give up a ton of 3s. They believe that’s fine because they can dominate the paint, win the possession game, wear opponents down and make enough plays to win ugly. The frustrating part of the 2021-22 season is that they did not find out if they were right.

And so they’ll try again. The only player who left in the summer was Rayjon Tucker, who appeared in only two games for Milwaukee last season. Wesley Matthews, Pat Connaughton, Bobby Portis, Jevon Carter, Serge…