National Basketball Association

Milwaukee Bucks Game Preview: Oct. 29 vs Brooklyn Nets

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

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The Milwaukee Bucks host the Brooklyn Nets on Saturday night. After losing their first game, can the Bucks get back on track against Brooklyn?

Mar 13, 2016; Brooklyn, NY, USA;Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo (34) passes the ball around Brooklyn Nets guard Sean Kilpatrick (6) and Brooklyn Nets guard Bojan Bogdanovic (44) in the second half at Barclays Center. Milwaukee defeats Brooklyn 109-100. Mandatory Credit: William Hauser-USA TODAY Sports

The Milwaukee Bucks did not have a strong start to their 2016-17 NBA season on Wednesday, losing to the Charlotte Hornets and looking like a very not-good team in the process. The Bucks get a shot at redemption on Saturday when the Brooklyn Nets come to town.

Last year it took the Nets until Nov. 11 to notch their first victory after losing seven straight games. This season, Brooklyn already has a win after beating the Indiana Pacers on Friday night.

The Nets still don’t have a ton of talent, but they’re very well-coached and they fight until the end each and every night. They’re coming off of a back-to-back here, which helps the Bucks, but this team can no longer be written off as an easy win by their opponents.

Can the well-rested Milwaukee Bucks get their first win against Brooklyn on Saturday night? A lot of factors will determine that.

We’ll go through the major keys to victory for both teams, look at a player to watch in this one, and then finally make our predictions!

Oct 26, 2016; Milwaukee, WI, USA; Milwaukee Bucks guard Matthew Dellavedova (8) passes the ball around Charlotte Hornets guard Ramon Sessions (7) during the second quarter at BMO Harris Bradley Center. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports

Major Key For Milwaukee: Make Some Threes

It was always going to be hard for the Bucks to maintain any sort of spacing in Khris Middleton‘s absence, but what happened on Wednesday was an assault on the very concept of pace and space basketball.

The good news is that Charlotte shot just 30.4 percent from beyond the arc against the Bucks. Milwaukee, not wanting to be outdone, made 18.8 percent of its threes. That would be the bad news.

The Bucks made just three of their 16 three-point attempts. Matthew Dellavedova, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Jabari Parker were the only players to make a trey. Milwaukee absolutely must be better than that from outside if the Bucks want to win more than 30 games this season.

There was a lot wrong with the Milwaukee Bucks in their first game of the season, but the horrible spacing stuck out as a huge problem. If the Bucks can’t hit threes, these tired Nets might prove more of a problem than people want to believe.

Oct 19, 2016; Milwaukee, WI, USA; Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo (34) tries to get past Indiana Pacers forward Paul George (13) in the third quarter at BMO Harris Bradley Center. Mandatory Credit: Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports

Major Key For Brooklyn: Stop That Freak

Giannis Antetokounmpo wasn’t just Milwaukee’s best player in their game against the Hornets; at times it felt like he was their only player. If the Nets want to win this one, they’ll need to make sure Point Giannis doesn’t get raring early.

Luckily Brooklyn has experience with stopping talented small forwards. The Nets bottled up Paul George in their game against the Pacers, as much as a team can hope to bottle up one of the Eastern Conference’s best scorers.

PG-13 still put up 22 points, but it took him 22 shots to do it. George shot 36.4 percent from the field and just 25 percent from three-point territory in the loss against Brooklyn. A lot of that strong defense came from Rondae Hollis-Jefferson.

RHJ looks completely unskilled on offense, as evidenced by his 3.5 points per game thus far this season, but his defense has been strong. He’s tied for 30th in the NBA in defensive box plus/minus, and should be the one tasked with guarding Giannis on Saturday.

If Hollis-Jefferson can hold the Greek Freak to the kind of inefficient night that Paul George had on Friday, it’d give the Brooklyn Nets a huge advantage in this game.

Oct 28, 2016; Brooklyn, NY, USA; Indiana Pacers forward Paul George (13) defends against Brooklyn Nets guard Jeremy Lin (7) during second half at Barclays Center. The Brooklyn Nets defeated the Indiana Pacers 103-94.
Mandatory Credit: Noah K. Murray-USA TODAY Sports

Player To Watch: Jeremy Lin

Brook Lopez is often considered the best player on the Brooklyn Nets, but he’s seventh on the team in minutes per game thus far. The Net that’s been relied on the most is none other than Jeremy Lin, and he’s been doing a valiant job in reviving Linsanity thus far.

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Lin recorded 21 points, nine rebounds and nine assists against the Pacers on Friday, while shooting 50 percent from both the field and the three-point arc. For the season he’s now averaging 19.5 points, six assists and six rebounds per game.

He’s been both a baller and a shot-caller this season, and he’ll have to be almost every night considering how thin this Nets roster is. Lin said he came to Brooklyn to get his shot at starting every night once more–he’s proving that he made the right call early in this season.

Since the hapless Nets can’t tank because they won’t keep their pick this or next season, they might as well try to win. Jeremy Lin is helping to make them a competitive team, and he’s got to be accounted for when the Bucks take on Brooklyn.

Mar 13, 2016; Brooklyn, NY, USA;Milwaukee Bucks center Miles Plumlee (18) guards against Brooklyn Nets center Brook Lopez (11) in the second half at Barclays Center. Milwaukee defeats Brooklyn 109-100. Mandatory Credit: William Hauser-USA TODAY Sports

Finale

The Brooklyn Nets are still bad, but they’re a different kind of bad this season. They’re now the scrappy, fighting kind of bad team that loves to sucker punch anybody who expects an easy win when they see the Nets on the schedule.

Hopefully the Bucks prepared intensely for this one, especially after their tough loss to the Hornets on Wednesday. This Nets team is no joke under Kenny Atkinson, and they’ll give Milwaukee everything they’ve got.

Going on the road for the second game of a back-to-back is tough stuff for any team though. The Nets aren’t deep at all and they should be tired, and with the Bucks armed with new shooting guard Tony Snell they should be able to pull out a win in this game.

Predictions:

Ti Windisch: Bucks by 6 — 1-0, 3 point differential

Adam McGee: Bucks by 9 — 0-1, 23 point differential

Jordan Treske: Bucks by 11 — 0-1, 17 point differential

Tom Pheister: Bucks by 12 — 0-1, 18 point differential

Tim Wray: Bucks by 7 — 0-1, 15 point differential

Lukas Harkins: Bucks by 10 — 1-0, 6 point differential

Adam Coffman: Bucks by 14

Rohan Katti: Bucks by 16

The game is on Saturday night at 7 p.m., and will be televised on Fox Sports Wisconsin.

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