“They did this the year they won it.” - Richard Jefferson talks about the Milwaukee Bucks’ defensive adjustments

RJ believes the Bucks are favorites to win it all.

© Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports

The Milwaukee Bucks have received some criticism for being unable to come up with a win throughout the preseason. However, while most teams use the preseason to create momentum for the upcoming season by winning a couple of games, the Bucks focus on experimentation.

Tweaks leading to unpredictability

Mike Budenholzer is often known for his rigorous coaching methods, but recent years have given him an avenue to try new things. In the spirit of new strategies, defending the perimeter better is one of their game plans - to cover for the points they gave up from deep last season. And the preseason was their platform to find out what works and what doesn’t – in their new approach.

Former NBA player Richard Jefferson, on NBA Today, discussed how the Bucks had done something similar in the past.

“They did this the year they won it. They tweaked some things and they lost some games trying to figure out where they were gonna go,” Jefferson said.

“To see them kind of tweaking, getting the ball out of Giannis’ hands - had a huge impact on them the year they won it,” he added. “Now they’re trying to switch up how they defend the three. This is just going to make teams have to figure out how to attack them.”

The Bucks are on a mission

The preseason gave the Bucks five games and four different opponents against whom they could try out their strategy. However, a new system is likely to take additional effort to master. Giannis Antetokounmpo and his crew will likely continue finding positives and negatives in their strategy – throughout the season.

For what it's worth, here's how three pointers allowed correlates with defensive efficiency. Allowing threes is weakly correlated with worse defense. But the Bucks are a clear outlier to that trend. pic.twitter.com/EvD2uKR0Cw

— Mike Beuoy (@inpredict) July 12, 2020

The Bucks, in the recent past, have been giving up a lot of three-pointers, and this tweak could help them make their defense more effective.

“I love this mostly because you’ve got the best player on the planet in Giannis Antetokounmpo. You’ve got great coaching, you’ve got schemes, and you’re aligning with a mission for them,” Candance Parker said on NBA Today. “It’s just a pinnacle of what makes them great and why they can be contenders time and time again.”

Whether the Bucks go through with their strategy throughout the season or find something else along the way has yet to be discovered. However, it is interesting to see NBA teams trying to implement new tactics in an ever-changing game to gain an edge.