The Dallas Mavericks (19-27) travel to Milwaukee to play the Bucks (18-26) after losing to Luka Doncic\u2019s Lakers on Saturday. The Mavs had their four-game win streak snapped by the Los Angeles Lakers on Saturday. After a quick turnaround, they hope to regroup as they enter Sunday\u2019s showdown with the Antetokounmpo-less Bucks, who are coming off a home loss to the Denver Nuggets. Here are three things to think about as Dallas looks to get back on track in Milwaukee.\u2018<\/p>\n
The Mavericks did not get to leave Dallas on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
Teams always try to travel the night before so players can get some rest and acclimate to the the area they\u2019re playing in. The Mavericks will try to come in hot and eek out a win despite being low on any reasonable amount of energy.<\/p>\n
Antetokounmpo Out with Calf Strain<\/p>\n
The misery of the Milwaukee Bucks\u2019 season deepened on Friday night after Giannis Antetokounmpo left the game against the Denver Nuggets with 34 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter. It was later revealed he suffered a right calf strain, the same injury that kept him sidelined three weeks earlier this season. He\u2019ll miss 4-6 weeks this time around.<\/p>\n
Despite the disappointing year for Milwaukee, Antetokounmpo has played like his MVP self. In 30 games, he\u2019s averaged 28.0 points, 10.0 rebounds, 5.6 assists, and 2.3 stocks (steals + blocks). He\u2019s the fifth most efficient scorer in the NBA at 64.5% from the floor. In November\u2019s 116-114 win over Dallas, Antetokounmpo led the Bucks with 30 points on 11\/18 from the floor and eight rebounds. No Antetokounmpo leaves a big hole in the middle. If the Mavs want to keep their win streak alive, they\u2019ll have to expose the paint on both ends of the floor and Milwaukee\u2019s lack of a true big man.<\/p>\n
The Bucks\u2019 Offensive Struggles<\/p>\n
The Bucks are a .500 team with Antetokounmpo, but are dreadful without him. In the 14 games he\u2019s missed this season, Milwaukee is 3-11. The Bucks are 27th in the NBA in offensive rating this season at 111.9 points per 100 possessions. With Antetokounmpo, they have an offensive rating of 116.3 points, which would be fifth in the NBA. Without him, they sit dead last in the NBA with an offensive rating of 108.0 points, just behind the Brooklyn Nets. Without Antetokounmpo\u2019s gravity, it\u2019s challenging for Milwaukee to find consistent good looks at the basket.<\/p>\n
The next two big men in line for the Bucks are Myles Turner and Bobby Portis, who both spend a lot of time on the perimeter, along with power forward Kyle Kuzma. Without the main cog in the wheel, Milwaukee will try to rely on its shooting to bail them out. They are second in the NBA in three-point shooting percentage at 39.2%.<\/p>\n
Milwaukee has scorers, having seven players who average double digits in points: Antetokounmpo (28.0), Kevin Porter Jr. (16.8), Ryan Rollins (16.1), Bobby Portis (13.1), Kyle Kuzma (12.5), Myles Turner (12.4), and A.J Green (10.5). The Bucks\u2019 second-best scorer in Kevin Porter Jr. is out due to an oblique strain. One silver lining for Milwaukee this season has been the growth of guard Ryan Rollins. The 44th overall pick in the 2022 draft by the Warriors found his way on the Bucks roster last season and has propelled himself to a potential future cornerstone. Expect him to have the ball in his hands a lot.<\/p>\n
The Mavericks\u2019 Offense Has Been Rolling<\/p>\n
On the Dallas side, they\u2019ve been one of the best paint-scoring teams in this recent stretch of good basketball, getting to the rim at will. The Mavs\u2019 quickness on the perimeter with Brandon Williams, Ryan Nembhard, and Max Christie has allowed them to have their way against opponents inside. Add in the craftiness and ability to get to their spots of guys like Naji Marshall and Cooper Flagg, and defenses have their hands full. Dallas sits at sixth in the NBA in points per game scored in the paint at 53.3. Attacking and finishing against this Bucks defense should be a top priority for the Mavs.<\/p>\n
Although the Mavs haven\u2019t been great this season from beyond the arc, they have been better as of late, making double-digit threes in five consecutive games: 10, 13, 15, 18, and 19. Max Christie continues to shoot the lights out as the league\u2019s seventh-best three-point shooter at a scoring 45.7%. Klay Thompson has been on a heater in January as well. In his last five games, he\u2019s 20\/42 from distance, 47.6%. Dallas will need to keep knocking down deep shots if it wants to get back in the win column.<\/p>\n
Tipoff is 6 PM and you can watch on KFAA-TV, Mavs.com, or NBA League Pass.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Dallas Mavericks (19-27) travel to Milwaukee to play the Bucks (18-26) after losing to Luka Doncic\u2019s Lakers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559875,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3775],"tags":[7,103,39459,102,121,3871,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-559874","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-milwaukee-bucks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-bucks","10":"tag-mavericks-game-coverage","11":"tag-milwaukee","12":"tag-milwaukee-bucks","13":"tag-milwaukeebucks","14":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115955863638103259","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}