Bucks Stay Unbeaten in the NBA Cup: Kuzma’s Emergence, a New Starting 5 and More Giannis Dominance

Bucks Stay Unbeaten in the NBA Cup: Kuzma’s Emergence, a New Starting 5 and More Giannis Dominance

The dynasty continues. The Bucks still unbeaten in group play of the NBA Cup. We break down a thrilling overtime win against the Charlotte Hornets. We dig into it coming up next on Locked on Bucks. You are Locked on Bucks, your daily Milwaukee Bucks podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. Welcome in to Locked on Bucks. My name is Justin Garcia, joined as always by Camille Davis. We thank you for making this your first listen of the day each and every day and for helping us make Locked On the number one sports podcast network on the market. Today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new customers can bet just $5. And if your bet wins, you’ll get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. Head to fanduel.com to get started. Well, if you are um just a box score watcher and truther, Camille, you probably came across this or you saw the the score scrolling as the game was in action and thought like, man, the Bucks are really struggling with a a bad Hornets team from what I remember. Um there were certainly some things that were not good that need to be cleaned up in this game. Although I think the variety is more the oneoff compared to some of the things that we’ve talked about extensively. I just want to say this. Uh Charlotte’s building something here that there are some nice pieces. They’re not going to be a playoff team this year. At least I don’t think. But man, you can see some nice pieces there, including some kid that apparently has Wisconsin ties and had half the arena. At least it felt like it. uh supporting the Charlotte Hornets and himself, man. Coniple, yeah, is a player in this league. Yeah, he is for real. Like was seeing his name kind of like at the top of some of the rookie of the year ladder boards was like, okay, that’s kind of interesting. Okay, so I’m really for the first time like close uh that Wednesday game and then seeing him again tonight where it’s like, okay, this kid really has something. Not scared of the moment. Big shot taker. Uh can even finish at the rim a little bit. like he he just overall as a rookie already seems like somebody who’s very comfortable in the offensive flow of the NBA game. So yeah, I’m I’m looking forward to continuing to watching uh Kanup hoop because he looks like he’s going to be a real player for a while. He’s got that like almost Rollinses that burst of speed where he gets past you and you think like, man, I didn’t think this guy had the jets in him here to to get to the rim. Um, and last thing we’ll say about the Hornets and Khan Canipple before the game, Charles Lee was uh was asked about what this environment was going to be like for uh Khan and Pat Conin. Um, did you see the photo too that the the Canipples had the entire Hornets team over to their home and Plum Le’s like bending down in the home of like I can’t really stand up. Yeah. Um, yeah. on Charles Lee said, “No, I like think this kid is going to handle it just fine. Like that’s the way he’s he’s built. That’s his mentality. It’s Pat Conetson I’m kind of worried about and like the reception he’s going to get and what that’s going to do to him.” But uh Charles even joked, at least I thought it was a joke that, you know, the the gathering section and the amount of tickets that were dispersed for the Canipples and all of his friends and family was in the thousands tonight. You’re like, “Okay.” It sure felt like it during the game and afterwards, too. I took a picture that, you know, you’ll have like Fred Van Vleet usually has a big section come from Rockford to to watch and cheer him on whenever he’s in Milwaukee. Certainly, the Indiana Pacers for some other guy that was from Oshkosh and a handful of these teams where you’re like, “Oh, okay. This was unlike anything I’ve ever seen where when the game ended, usually you’ll have like, I don’t know, 30, 50 people just able to congregate down near the court, sit in the seats closest to it, and catch up with the player that they have the ties to. There was like an entire section full of people after the game. and Khan Caniples walking up and down the rows that that section was in shaking hands, hugging, greeting every single person there after the game. When I saw the reports that he had nearly 2,000 tickets issued for this game in that big of a group, it made me stop and think like, do I even know 2,000 people where I could be like, “Hey, I know 2,000 people.” I don’t even think I know 1,000 people. So to see the type of support um from somebody from the area, from the 414, from Milwaukee, um a local kid, like it’s it’s really cool to see that type of energy around him, uh seeing his family and his friends in his village come out. At first I was like, did he give tickets to like all of Wisconsin Lutheran to have this many people come out? But no, like it’s just a lot of love for him in the city. And I know both of his parents too are known in Wisconsin in the area in Souththeast Wisconsin as well. legend. One could say, one could say, but no, I mean ultimately like it’s a good story and I hope that he goes on to have a a pretty great career. Hopefully it doesn’t end up like that other guy from um Oshkosh where uh some bad blood starts to form between the two teams where people don’t appreciate what they’re seeing because um got to lean on the troll. Got to lean in on it. The last here’s here’s the last little uh fun fact tidbit I’ll I’ll share uh before we we dig into the game here which people came here for. Um, Khan Canipple, I don’t know how much of it I want to give away, but Khan Canipple may have been the the straw that broke the camel’s back in the retirement of a legendary coach in college basketball because uh, his uncle was teammates with this coach on a team that beat Cal in the NCAA tournament. Jason Kid led Cal team at Green Bay. And um this coach thought, “All right, I know the uncle. We’ve made all the the inroads here. I think we’re going to get him to come to Virginia and Tony Bennett.” Uh but at the last minute, Khan Canipple went to Duke and that kind of started to plant the seeds of I don’t know if I want to do this anymore with the way that this game is going with NIL and everything else. So man, uh, and he would have been, you know, you think of all the Virginia players, Coniple fits that to a tea, like shooting, he’s a little more athletic than I think, and he can play defense. So, one of those like sliding doors, what may have been moments, but all right, on to the game. Overtime, Bucks win it. And, um, Camille, I don’t know how many more times we are going to sit here and say like, man, you know what? Kyle Kosma was really good for the Bucks once again tonight. Once again moving to the starting lineup for this game as well. So we saw Dot figure like hey the current configuration of going out here with Rollins and Green and Trent and Giannis and Miles just not giving us what we need right now. And I mean that starting group was getting outscored. Um, so something had to change and the change that was made was to pull the Kyle Kosma lever, which worked out really well in this first game with him in the starting lineup in place of Gary Tren Jr. where you look at the numbers and you’re like, “Okay, Cuz double double season high in points with 29, led the team in rebounds with 10, five assists, four steals, which Kyle Kosma wanted to be very clear, make sure you highlight the steals in this game as well.” He said that I don’t think I’ve ever had four steals in the game. He had one other game with four steals when he was a Laker. Um, so it’s been that long since he’s had a game with that many steals in it. But ultimately love the way he was cutting to the rim, being aggressive, uh, making his presence felt on the boards, knocking down shots. Like Cuz has been playing some pretty good basketball so far this season. Not perfect, but I don’t think anybody on this team has been perfect so far this year. Closest to it is probably Giannis. But like Cuz has been making a positive impact on this team big time. Yeah. And I mean in fairness, two of those steals were are gift wrapped that Cuz kind of walked in two layups. But it’s his his presence. And again, I think Doc gave a really good interesting answer on it for anybody that has reservations here about this lineup because I I don’t think it’s a one-off. Um now two weeks from now does it ish does it change again? I may be, you know, when when KPJ is available, but um Doc after the game was talked or was asked about the lineup itself. And I think what a lot of people will meet it with is you don’t that’s not a lot of shooting, you know, like that’s that’s not enough shooting if you got Giannis and Koozma on the floor together. and and Doc’s answer, which you know, as we’ve seen through the course of this season and um a couple of flashes last year, was here’s why it works. Giannis is going to draw defenders obviously and Miles is able to hang out on the perimeter and pull the big away from where they want to be in that action to kind of throw another body at Giannis, not stop him. Cuz is our cutter and Cuz is going to cut to the rim to either get an open uncontested dunk or alleviate some of that where somebody on the perimeter has to kind of sag in a little more or peel off their guy and then Giannis is going to either have CS cutting to the basket, an open shooter on the outside or he’s going to find a mismatch that he can take advantage of. And when it was working, that’s that’s what it was last night. And I remember, you know, we talked about this so much last year that one of the issues that the Bucks would run into offensively was they would get stagnant. And it wasn’t always, you know, just pounding the air out of the ball and not enough passes or the ball doesn’t touch both sides of the floor or you don’t get it into the paint. Like sometimes it was just guys could have a tendency to just sit and watch Giannis. Yeah. like one, you’re probably watching and marvel like, “Wow, I can’t believe he did that.” But you’re also just waiting to get that pass. And you know what what we mentioned coming into this season, if this is going to be the way the Bucks play, you need to move off ball. Kyle Kosma has without question been their best player at doing that and one of their only players doing that. Like, how many times have we seen that 45 cut from Koosma during games that just opens things up for the rest of the guys? And last night it was Cuz that was taking advantage of it. Not only is he cutting and and getting that offball movement going and making things a little bit more difficult for defenses to try to defend straight up without having to move for like in addition to that, he’s finishing better at the rim, too. Because even last year when he was able to find himself at the rim, you’d be like, “Okay, he’s he’s not converting these at a high enough clip.” And that was something that was a focus of his and his trainer in the offseason of finishing at the rim stronger. And when you look at the numbers that you you see from Coup so far, like he is shooting a careerhigh from two point like two-pointers careerhigh 64% on his two-point shots. He’s never cleared 55% before when it comes to knocking down those two-point shots. Like that is boosting his just overall field goal numbers by being that effective around the rim, which as again has never been seen in Kooza’s career so far. So, not only is he able to create that chaos from the cuts, but this season you’re seeing him finish at the rim, too, which is continuing to add to the scoreboard and making him even more uh valuable when he’s on the court. Now, he’s also averaging a career low in turnovers right now, careerhigh from free throw percentage. Uh the three-point shot that still needed a little work for Cuz right there, but with him being able to be so effective on the cuts and also the willingness to take the shots when he’s open from three. Um the the profile is there for him. So he just has to keep putting in that work. And to your point about this being not just a one-off. I completely agree with you and I’m I’m curious to see how this continues to look uh for Cuz in the starting lineup, because one other area we saw the Bucks get killed uh by the Hornets on Wednesday was rebounding. And for this game to end where both teams are 39 rebounds a piece, like you take that. Yeah. So, I I do want to get into the rebounding because that was one of my bigger takeaways. And I mentioned some of the things the Bucks needed to quote unquote clean up more the oneoff variety. So, we’ll dig into the good and the bad um in the team statistics coming up next on Locked on Bucks. The NBA season’s heating up and Door Dash has found the perfect way to keep fans in their bag all season long. Whether you’re watching for highlights, your fantasy team, or just your favorite player, Door Dash makes every night even better. Door Dash is the official ondemand delivery platform of the NBA, and they’re celebrating with something called the bag drop. Every time an NBA player scores 50 points in a game, Door Dash drops 50% off your order with Dash Pass the very next day and you’re automatically entered for a chance to win the ultimate fan bag. We’re talking player inspired drip exclusive gear stuff you’ll actually want. And it’s not just food to use Door Dash for. 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Um, one of the things that struck me though was at halftime the Bucks were shooting 63% and they were getting out rebounded. And like in that instance, I’m going to call out the total number of rebounds because if you’re hitting twothirds of your shots. Yeah. Uh there should not be that many rebounding opportunities for your opponent. So to get out rebounded really said something. and they got off to another poor start. And um you know, our guy who he he was um he was an all-star last season is is a multi-time all-star, correct? In um what the Hornets have here with Musa Debbate, he’s a multi-time all-star, right? You would think if he played the Bucks all the time, he would be. I I mean he is very good at that, but you can’t get pummeled on the glass like the Bucks have been doing. That’s that’s the biggest reason for the CS insertion and Doc said so himself. You mentioned it like size. We got to play bigger. As the game went on, they got better at rebounding the basketball. And you know what? Like it even reached points where I let’s celebrate because the Bucks finished this game with uh in the competitive minutes a damn near 74% defensive rebounding rate which like is where they’ve been for the last seven or so years. But that number was in the 60s for all of this season. So like massive step forward. Now let’s see it again against the Lakers. And it’s especially impressive because the Hornets coming in were the second best offensive rebounding team in the league. So, at least in this one instance, now let’s see if you can bottle it. Size paid off. It did. It did. I mean, size paid off. You had Giannis out there who I know we’re going to talk about given the fact that he had uh 18 assists in this game. But on the rebounding front, like you think like, oh, Giannis coming back into the lineup, that’s going to help out a lot with the rebounding. And that’s a piece of it for sure. But also eight rebounds for Ryan Rollins in this game where most of them came at the end. Like yeah, Rollins had three rebounds through the first three quarters. Then he had three in the fourth and two in overtime and it felt like every board he got in the fourth quarter and overtime were really big rebounds for the team. So like it was a group effort. Cuz leading the way with 10 of them things, then you had Rollins with eight. Giannis had seven rebounds of his own to be of his own to be third in the team in rebounds. Like I don’t expect many games where Ryan Rollins is your second leading, you know, rebounder, but like it had to be a team effort. Everybody had to dig in knowing that this has been a problem for the squad. And I love the way that they were able to respond. Getting better as the game went on as you mentioned, but like the fact they responded after such a lopsided rebounding total in their last game against the Hornets. Um Rollins and Koozma both had about a 25% defensive rebounding rate in this game which yeah is incredible. Um Cole Anthony and Jericho Sims you saw some moments on the offensive glass too. And you know that’s another thing when we talk about the size. This is uh I should check the box scores to back this up, but this feels like a couple of games now, handful of games in a row where we’re seeing Jericho Sims get about 10 minutes of run here, which I think that’s another thing that’s that’s here to stay that, you know, you’re going to need to continue to stagger the minutes of Giannis and Miles Turner to keep size out there number one, but also to have a rim protector out What that means is Jericho Sims is going to have to play some more and finding those minutes to get him out there to really continue to get minutes um where you you’ve got three bigger guys on the floor at all times, too. Like there’s a couple of times in that game last night where we saw uh I believe it was Jericho Sims, Koozma, and Bobby Portoris on the four together. So yeah, I’m curious to see how much that continues. He he’s played basically 28 minutes these last two games against the Hornets in both of those is season highs in 17 18 minutes in the game. One, 10 minutes last night. Other than that, it had been basically like five minutes whenever he’s out there on the floor. So, I do wonder if like Jericho Sims is gonna get 10 minutes a game here to stay here for this group. Um the offense was really good last night. And this Hornets team isn’t known for their defense, but the Bucks finished the game with a 135 offensive rating. Crazy. Um, Giannis, you mentioned the assists and he just saved for one play in this game, which at the time was a big one. He just kind of let things come to him and was more than happy to pick the the Hornets apart. I mean, had a 38% usage rate, but when you look at what his opponents were doing with their points scored on on their total shot attempts. Mhm. That’s where you see just how patient Giannis was and looking to set things up and saying, “Let’s play for the right shot.” I mean, Miles Turner, AJ Green, Gary Harris, who we saw resurrected as well, Koozma, Ryan Rollins, all these guys were in the 90th percentile and creating more than 150 points per 100 shot attempts throughout the course of the game because of the quality of looks that they were getting with Giannis’s patience. Giannis, as you meant, patience was the word for him. He didn’t really force too much in this game. He was letting the game come to him based on what the defense was doing and he was finding the right reads and guys were knocking down shots. Like of the 18 assists that Giannis had in this game against the Hornets Hornets, 14 of those led to three-point buckets. Yeah. Like when you just look through all the assists that Giannis had, all 18 of them, he had four in the first quarter. Rollins three, Turner three, Turner three, Cous three. Second quarter, a Harris three, a Trent three, a coup’s layup. The third quarter, Green three, Green three, Rollins three. Fourth quarter, Portis three, Anthony three, Rollins three, a Rollins two, a Coos two, and a coup’s dunk. Then in overtime, Turner three, Cous three. like not only was he be able to set up his teammates, but to get three points out of those looks, an area for the team that I’ I’ve been kind of pointing to like, hey, we talked this off seasonason, we heard so much about wanting to get the volume of three-point shot attempts up for this team. Only 34 three-point attempts for the Bucks in this game, but they knocked down 20 of them. like they shot 59% from three in this game, which again is why it’s like I want to continue to see that volume go up when you can knock down threes at this rate. But the fact that they were able to shoot make three more threes than the Hornets when the Hornets shot 11 more threes than the Bucks did. Like again, I put a lot of that in Giannis’ hands for the way that he was able to see how the defense was playing him and finding his teammates and them for knocking down the shots when they came to him. shooting was really good. 59% they’re 10 of 10 on corner threes and that’s the other thing is the quality looks they got uh 10 of 10 on corner threes 22 of 27 at the rim. So this offense this was clicking defense is where let’s start to build something here. So, we’ll take a look at some of those numbers. And one of the I will go as far as to call it an outlier outlier numbers that you may ask, how how is this a game? Like, how is this in overtime if the Bucks were shooting at those rates? 65% from the floor, 59% on their threes, they make 23s. Like, why is this in overtime in a close game? There’s one reason why. 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It’s good to be right. Uh how were the Hornets in this game, Camille? What would your answer be? Uh, putting you on the spot and grading and testing your answer here, just like we’re in school. How were the Hornets? The Hornets were scrappy. I think the Hornets, as we mentioned earlier, are going to be a competitive team throughout the year. It’s the first game that they had back from LaMelo, who I think missed what, five games uh prior to this one. So, he was on a minutes restriction. Uh, they were without Ryan uh Cochrrener, who just had his god. I know, right? I don’t know how the rebound numbers would have looked if he we we joked about it before the game on the air, but like who would have thought we would straight face be having a conversation of you know is it actually better off to get them with LaMelo than get them with Ryan Caulk printer. Like that’s how dominant that man has been so far uh around the hoop. So I think the Hornets I one I’ll say this I think the Hornets are a definite league pass team where you could watch them on League Pass and be entertained every time you step on the court. Um, but ultimately a surprise for me with the Hornets in this game was the fact that uh the Bucks ended with 22 turnovers in this game. And it wasn’t as if the Hornets were they’re not known for forcing a lot of turnovers. So, that’s one aspect of the Hornets performance in this game where I was like a little little surprised uh that y’all were able to to create this much havoc uh for the Bucks here. Well, that is the singular reason why. Um, a lot of it to the naked eye was self-inflicted. Um, I think Bobby had three early ones. There was one especially where he tried a couple of those like dump off pocket passes at the top of the key in traffic and it just leads to a fast break on the other end. The way the Hornets were in this, Bucks turned it over 22 times and the Hornets scored 31 points off of those. The turnover total is the most the Hornets defense has given up this season or allowed or forced this season. The points off turnovers the most by a lot the Hornets have scored this season. It’s the most the Bucks have allowed to an opponent this season as well. So, it was ugly. It got much better in the second half. I believe in the final like 3ish, 4ish minutes of the fourth and overtime, the Bucks only had one single turnover. So, just like the rebounding, it got better. But that was it. I mean, I like to lump in a couple team stats together to see how are you doing in those numbers and oftent times it’ll dictate how is this game going. If you look at the points you’re giving your opponent off of turnovers and the points your opponent is scoring on offensive rebounds, last night the Hornets, that number tallied to 43. They outscored the Bucks 43-29. You’re usually going to lose those games. Uh the way the Bucks won is they were incredibly efficient. So when they weren’t turning over, they were scoring and finished with 20 made threes and and shot at a high rate there. I mean, again, another game where Charlotte, the opponent, took nearly 15 more field goals than the Bucks. Part of that was free throws, which started to balance out and and it wasn’t the margin that we’ve seen quite a bit of. Like we talked about the rebounding figures. All things considered, this was a good free throw game for the Bucks. They got to the line 22 times. They shot 77% which both more than we’ve seen in recent stretches of play. But again, Hornets made six more free throws and got to the line seven more times. So like those are the things that are going to sway a lot of these so- so games and thankfully the Bucks were just efficient when they weren’t turning it over and hit a lot of threes. I’m not worried about the turnovers because the Bucks have been pretty good at protecting the ball this season. in the top 10 team in their turnover rate. And even guys like Rollins and Cole Anthony are both in the top 10 of lowest turnover rate on their drives. So they’ve done a good job of protecting the ball this season. I don’t take last night as anything other than a, you know, blip on the radar with the turnovers. The rest of it though, like you did a good job of minimizing the damage. 10 offensive rebounds for the Hornets. Not ideal, but better than what we’ve seen in recent games for the Bucks. They scored 12 points off of those. You had five. You scored nine. So, you were at least starting to narrow it down. Just continue to work on that. And you got to make free throws. You got to. You got to. And that’s the thing for this Bucks team because when you just look at their actual like free throw rate, like how many free throws are they getting per 100 field goal attempts is what that breaks down to. And you look at the rate for the Bucks, they are going into this game, I haven’t looked this morning, but they were like 29th in free throw rate. They just haven’t gotten there consistently. And when they have gotten there, they haven’t knocked them down at a high clip. they’ve been last in the league in field or free throw percentage. Uh so that’s an area for them where they have to continue to to try to make some hay because we’ve talked about losing Dame, what that means, losing Chris, what that means to the free throw percentage and just opportunities at the line. Um and when the guy who gets to the free throw line the most often for your team, Giannis is someone who has historically struggled from the free throw line. Um Giannis himself said one thing that helps with that is just getting the opportunities. Like getting to the line is the hardest part. if we can get there, we’ll figure everything else out. So, for this game, like you mentioned, like they got to continue working on the free throws, but uh for them to be able to pull out a win given the the turnover battle and how that went. And just to add a little bit more context of just how unexpected it was for the Hornets to do this, uh the Hornets going into the game against the Bucks on Friday night were last in the league uh points off turnovers. So they average about 13 points per game off of turnovers. So when you know that and then you see like oh but in this game they had 31 points off turnovers like like you said normally that’s that’s a game you you probably lose. So um it’s it’s a good thing for the Bugs here that they were able to find a way to win. Threes were falling. The offense was moving. Although the weird stipulation with NBA Cup rules where overtime doesn’t count towards your point differential. That’s kind of weak. I I don’t like that. I don’t like that. So, oh, you know what? I forgot about that. Yeah, it does not count towards the point differential. So, it’s it’s zero z00 uh for points added in this cup game for the Milwaukee Bucks. Wait, is it No, no, it does count. Really? I saw Eric had a tweet, Eric Name had a tweet saying that overtime scores don’t count towards NBA Cup point differential. The win counts, but the point differential doesn’t get added from what you did in overtime. I don’t know about that because everything I’m seeing has the Bucks said plus 29 in point differential. Oh, so they are including it. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Because and I I wonder too because like when we saw AJ take that three with a couple seconds left like okay they’re they’re going to try to juice their point differential. So yeah, I think it does count. It may not have before and they changed it cuz they made a ton of changes these past this past year to it. Um, but yeah, everything I’m seeing for the on the NBA’s own site for the group play standings has the Bucks at plus 29. Um, and to your point too, the the Hornets after this game are using cleaning the glass for your non-garbage time stuff. They’re 24th in defense, 27th in opponent effective field goal percentage, 28th in defensive turnover rate. So like those were the opportunities for the Bucks. The turnovers were just jarring. They are number one in offensive rebounding rate now. They have moved uh past or defensive rebounding rate. I beg your pardon. They’re still number seven in offensive rebounding rate. But for the Bucks, you know, if you look at the four factors and you just start at the front of the ledger and then stop, you’re like, “All right, Bucks are pretty good this year.” Um that defense part and you’re like, “Oo, hold on.” Yeah. I mean, number eight in offensive rating, number one in effective field goal percentage, number 10 in turnover rate. You’re like, “All right, stop. Stop the count. We’re good with this.” And then you get to offensive or defensive rebounding um free throw rate as well. The Bucks are 30th and 29th in offensive rebounding and free throw rate. You know, you’re usually not a good team if you’re in the bottom five in multiple categories in the four factors here. Like the other teams that are the Memphis Grizzlies, the New Orleans Pelicans, the Wizards, by the way, just fired their head coach as we did here. Yeah. Um, so that’s the company of like, all right, let’s just continue to improve getting to the line and minimizing the damage on the glass here. That’s that’s the big step forward opportunity for this uh this Bucks team here. And now you get the Lakers tonight, Camille. It’s night two of backto-back for the Lakers as well. Um they were up big on the Pelicans and the now recently fired Willie Green. I saw it was like 15 in the third quarter when I was just box score watching during our game because I was curious. Oh man, like if this gets ugly here, are the Lakers going to be able to rest Luca and um and Reeves and build in some advantages there? But they both played relatively heavy minutes. So, I’m very curious to see what both groups look like tomorrow with the Lakers. It’s It’s not an awful trip. It’s a three-hour flight from New Orleans to Milwaukee, so it’s not like they’re coming cross country. Um, but let’s just see what uh what both these teams, especially the Lakers, look like tomorrow because uh I haven’t even checked the the injury report yet. We’ll do that in a second here. But I mean, I have no reason to believe any of the other guys are not going to play for the Bucks. You know, like Doc was pretty candid that Giannis didn’t play against the Hornets for rest. So, like you’re not going to sit Giannis on rest in two out of three games here. Yeah, that’s the assumption. Like even like I the overtime win against the Hornets was fun from a fan perspective, just watching the game, seeing it get down to the nitty-gritty and the back and forth affair of the entire game. But when you think about that, this was the first kind of a backto-back, not ideal, you know, to go into overtime to have Giannis playing 40 minutes, Kyle Coozman playing 39 in this game. But um it’s situation luckily for the Bucks where they’re not the only team at this rest disadvantage heading into this game with the Lakers having played as well. I do wonder if that means that Doc might just go a little bit deeper into the rotation. We haven’t quite seen that so far this season on segments for back toback where he’s like, “Okay, we’re going to add someone else to the rotation, take some minutes off of some guys.” Like there was no air coffee against the Hornets. Do we see him even if it’s only five, seven minutes in this game tonight against the Lakers to try to, you know, just steal minutes where you can? I’ll be curious to see what that allocation looks like for the squad tonight. Gary Harris got those minutes. So, be curious to see that. Yeah, he earned them to see that going forward here. Um, we’ll recap again this Lakers game and uh hopefully we’re talking about another win and the Bucks improving to 9 and5. You got eight games left in the month of November. We’ll get into this in further detail next week on a non-postgame show. But if you can go five and three in those eight and finish the month what 13 and eight like all things considered a quarter of the way through the season at that point basically I think that puts you on pace for 48 49 wins if you continue to play at that rate. Um, and you got a lot of tough opponents. Like you have seven of these next eight games are against teams where they combine 636 win percentage with, you know, the Cavs, the Pistons, the Sixers, the Lakers, the Heats, the Knicks. So, this is a big stretch for this team. So, if you can go five and three in that, I will be impressed. and I think you’ll be in a really good spot going into the month of December where hopefully you are then getting Kevin Porter Jr. back as well. Um so it’s a nice win for the Bucks. And the last thing I suppose we should touch on is we’re running way late here is um the other game in your group last night was the Knicks and Heat. And I was kind of torn of like well what’s the ideal scenario here if we want to happen in this game? Yeah, cuz if the Heat win, the Knicks are basically out of contention to win it. We’ve never seen a team uh advance to the knockout rounds that picked up two losses in group play stage. That would have been the Knicks second loss. So then it it basically comes down to all right, if if that’s the case and you win, if you win your next game, which is in Miami against the Heat, you’re going to win your stage here cuz you’ll have tiebreaking wins over the Heat, the Bulls, and the Hornets. And the Knicks will have had two losses. So that’s not what we got. Instead, you have the Knicks, the Heats, and the Bulls all one and one. The Hornets are 0 and2 and you’re 2 and 0. With your plus 29 point differential, I still think the spot the Bucks are in now is as long as you split those two games in New York and in Miami, if you split the two and and if the loss, catastrophic, you’re in a really good spot to win with the tiebreakers and once again win your group play and advance to the knockout rounds here. Yeah, as you said, the NBA Cup dynasty um that the Milwaukee Bucks are putting together. But I think it’s a fun group, too, because the interesting thing about it is that the last two group play games for the Bucks come in the same week. Like it’s it’s next week, Wednesday, and then Friday, I think it is the Thanksgiving week, I believe it is, for the Bucks there. So, I can’t That week you get Drew Holiday and the Blazers coming to town on Monday. You got two cup games against arguably your two toughest opponents here in your group. Like that’s a big week. And then, oh, not to short change it, you get the Brooklyn Nets coming to town junior and the Nets. Um, all right. As we are now wrapping here, I promise one last thing I’m going to throw out there. I looked at this before the game started and thought, you know, I could have sworn they’re pretty good with this grouping and they were, but it’s it’s not a lot of minutes and possessions. Uh, after last night, it has now moved up to 137 possessions. So, still very small. At this point, you’d like 300 or so, 400 of a sample size, but I’ll take 137 to make this point. So far this season, when Giannis, Miles Turner, and Kyle Kosma are sharing the floor, Mhm. The Bucks are a plus 36.5 in net rating. They’re a 138 offensive rating, which is in the 100th percentile. Um, they are shooting 70% effective field goal percentage, and they’re a 101.5 defensive rating. They have been terrific in limited minutes and possessions with that trio on the floor. But that’s why I don’t think that starting group is going away. Yeah, when you hear numbers like that, it it it it makes you want to double down. Like, let’s continue to get lineups with these three out here. One other thing I’ll say lineup related that I’m interested in seeing with this Lakers game, too. Um, if they continue with the starting lineup, which I have no reason to think that they would go back at this point from putting Kyle Kosma in there for Gary Trent. Uh, we did see Doc revert back to some of the all bench lineups in this game against the Hornets. I’m curious to see if we see that again tonight against the Lakers and if this is just kind of like the the new start of the reconfiguration of like, okay, let’s see what this all bench lineup looks like together and if we can get away with this. If not, then let’s get back to finding a way to stagger Miles and Giannis so that we try to have at least one of them on the court at all times, which you saw over the last few games uh before this starting lineup change. So, rotation things to keep an eye on for the Bucks going forward, but there’s proof in the pudding when you put Kyle Kosma, Giannis, and Miles Turner together on the court at the same time. A sentence that I’m not sure how many people uh would have saw coming. Yeah. Uh let’s continue to see more of this here for this group. That’ll do it for today’s show. Again, we’ll recap the Lakers game as well. No injury reports submitted yet for either team because it’s night two of a backtoback. So, we’ll see later in the day what to expect in this matchup for Camille. I’m Justin. We’ll talk with you guys once again tomorrow on Locked on Bucks.

Milwaukee Bucks survive overtime thriller against Charlotte Hornets to stay perfect in NBA Cup play. Kyle Kuzma’s career night in his first start raises questions about Doc Rivers’ rotation moving forward.

Justin Garcia and Camille Davis break down Kuzma’s season-high 29 points and 10 rebounds, Giannis Antetokounmpo’s masterful 18-assist performance that created 14 three-pointers, and the team’s dramatic rebounding turnaround after halftime. The hosts analyze concerning turnover issues—22 giveaways leading to 31 Hornets points—and examine how Milwaukee’s elite shooting efficiency (59% from three, 10-of-10 on corner threes) overcame those mistakes. Discussion covers the Bucks’ NBA Cup standings, Ryan Rollins’ clutch rebounding in crunch time, and the strategic lineup adjustments that sparked a plus-36.5 net rating with Giannis, Brook Lopez, and Kuzma together.

Can Milwaukee maintain this offensive rhythm against the Lakers on a back-to-back while cleaning up the turnover problems?

0:00 Intro
1:52 Kon Knueppel’s breakout performance and Wisconsin ties
5:06 Knueppel’s massive ticket distribution and local support
6:51 Kyle Kuzma moves to starting lineup
11:12 Kuzma’s improved finishing at the rim
16:00 Rebounding improvements and defensive adjustments
21:07 Giannis’s 18 assists and offensive efficiency
25:54 Hornets’ competitiveness and turnover issues
32:12 NBA Cup point differential rules discussion
36:13 Lakers back-to-back matchup preview
39:48 NBA Cup group play standings breakdown
41:30 Giannis-Turner-Kuzma lineup dominance

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