With Giannis, Milwaukee hopes things will go different this time
Forget what happened between these teams in 2023–24. Just forget it. Patrick Beverley isn’t here to throw a ball at Pacers fans (heh), nor is Khris Middleton to become a human flamethrower (sigh). Danilo Gallinari and Jae Crowder aren’t on the Bucks (yay), Kyle Kuzma (eek) is. Damian Lillard is probably not going to appear in the series (dammit), Giannis Antetokoumpo will be on the court from the jump (hallelujah).
Otherwise, the Pacers are pretty similar. The Bucks replaced playoff pumpkins like Crowder and Malik Beasley with three very effective role players in Gary Trent Jr., Kevin Porter Jr., and Taurean Prince. Holdovers AJ Green and Bobby Portis both had a rough go of it last spring, but the latter won’t be relied upon as heavily this time. It’s that depth, a vastly improved defense, and continued dominance from Giannis that allowed the Bucks to take three of four in the regular-season series after losing four of five the previous year. While none of Milwaukee’s wins were dominant, they were each pretty decisive, and an ill-advised contest on a game-tying three by Giannis was the main thing preventing a sweep.
But as we saw last year, how two teams match up in their pre-playoff meetings or how a team finishes the regular season don’t correlate that cleanly to postseason results. Milwaukee entered the 2024 NBA Playoffs as losers of eight of their final 11 (Giannis played in seven of those games, Dame played in just five). They enter this year’s playoffs as winners of eight of their final 11, finishing on an eight-game win streak. Meanwhile, Indiana is basically just as hot, taking—you guessed it—eight of their final 11, including a six-game win streak before shutting it down once they secured the fourth seed. Since March 11, they’re 15-4.
Like I did last year, let’s strip these teams down to their parts. As you might already know, Milwaukee is a much worse matchup for Indiana this year, despite the seeding flip. In fact, last year’s 47-35 Eastern Conference finalists strike me as the better Pacers squad than this year’s 50-32 edition. And as I think many of their fans will likely agree, these 48-34 Bucks seem quite a bit friskier, and possibly more dangerous, than the 49-33 group who limped into the 2024 postseason.
Starters
As unconventional as the Bucks’ three-forward starting lineup has been in the latter portion of the season, it’s actually been pretty good by the numbers! Compare it with the starting five they began the year with, the next iteration that replaced Trent with Andre Jackson Jr., and then with Kuzma in place of AJax before Dame’s blood clot:
These are literally the Bucks’ four most-used lineups this season. One of those groups has been on the floor at tip-off for 59 regular-season games. Cleaning The Glass, which filters out garbage time and heaves, actually has slightly better net ratings for each of them at 1.3, -2.2, +6.7, and +13.0, respectively. In terms of possessions, those groups got 653, 428, and 294 together in meaningful action. You can quibble with the quality of some opponents the final group with the gaudiest numbers saw (Lakers without LeBron or Doncic, Kings, Suns, Sixers, Heat without Herro, Pelicans), and its defense is somehow the worst despite having quality defenders at each position. But I think it’s earned itself a shot to begin things on Saturday.
Indiana’s starting five, on the other hand, has been together for much longer this season. The quintet of Tyrese Haliburton, Andrew Nembhard, Aaron Nesmith, Pascal Siakam, and Myles Turner has surprisingly good defensive numbers, which actually improve when they insert sixth man Bennedict Mathurin for Nesmith:
These started 49 of the Pacers’ contests this year, and CTG boosts them to +13.2 and +12.2, respectively. Possession-wise, they got 891 and 789 to gel. They featured the unit with Mathurin at the three as their primary look until early February before swapping him with Nesmith, who has started all but two games since February 11th. The latter group helped see them from a 30-23 team to finishing the year 50-32. But that was how they began the year until knee injuries knocked Nembhard out for a month. Indy toiled below .500 until finally emerging above it on January 6th, and it was the group with Mathurin that saw an 11-game improvement in the standings once Nembhard returned on December 1st.
Interestingly, neither of these groups is a world-beater offensively, reflecting Indiana’s slight scoring drop-off compared to 2023–24. But they defend as well or much better this year—the group with Mathurin saw an 8.3 point improvement in defensive rating. Neither are strong on the offensive glass, which is a welcome sign for Bucks fans weary of their team’s struggles to haul in defensive boards at times this year.
I believe in the Bucks’ starting lineup and trust them to begin games decently, despite a stretch during their eight-game win streak where their first-quarter offensive rating was just 110.3. However, I think this series will be won based on whoever the Bucks close with, and if the last couple weeks are any indication, it won’t be this group. The good news is that even with such a strong Pacers’ starting lineup, and they’ll probably close some games with one of the two groups above, the Bucks have groups to counter them.
Edge: Pacers
Rotations
Beyond their top six, the Pacers have longtime Buck killer T.J. McConnell, Obi Toppin, and perhaps a little Ben Sheppard or Jarace Walker to mix in. Replace any two starters with two of those four, and the Pacers are more likely to struggle. We’ll likely see much less of the two younger guys, so let’s focus on McConnell-led lineups. Alongside Haliburton, they’re -1.3 in 386 minutes, but when TJM runs the offense alongside any of the remaining five from their top six, Indiana is exceptional with a +28.8 net rating and a 92.6 DRtg per CTG. Such groups have played just 56 possessions this year, so small sample size applies, but we may see them in this series, which is a small sample size in and of itself.
When Haliburton is out and Mathurin subs in with the remaining four starters, the Pacers’ defense is at its best (CTG gives them a 100.0 DRtg in 118 possessions), but they don’t score anywhere near as efficiently. Their most dangerous look is predictably when Siakam moves up to the five for Turner, who comes out for Toppin. That’s their best five-man group among those with at least 100 possessions; CTG has them at +18.5 on the year with a 76th percentile defense. Interestingly, Indiana has only used a Haliburton-Nembhard-Mathurin-Nesmith-Siakam lineup once all season. Seems like a good thing Rick Carlisle is unlikely to choose that one during this series, because I could see it presenting trouble for Milwaukee.
With so many ways Carlisle can arrange his top seven, how can Doc Rivers match up? There’s an easy answer: Giannis. No matter who he plays with, the Bucks are a wrecking ball at +12.3 and a 99th percentile offense in 903 possessions, according to CTG. There are only six Giannis lineups alongside the Bucks’ other likely top eight guys for this series (Porter, Rollins, Green, Trent, Prince, Kuzma, Portis, and Lopez) with at least 15 possessions and are below water from a plus-minus standpoint.
But without Dame, point guard duties seem likely to go to Porter during important minutes, and he’ll split primary playmaking responsibilities with Giannis. In the 384 possessions those two have shared the floor with any of the remaining seven players I mentioned in the previous paragraph, the Bucks are an outstanding +19.2 with a 96th percentile defense, as rated by CTG. The first, second, and fifth most frequently used lineups that include Gianns+KPJ are an outrageous +51.7 in 193 possessions together. Essentially, Doc can trot out almost anyone next to that duo with confidence. We know how well using Portis, Trent, and Green with those two has gone over the last week or so, and that fivesome has earned the right to close playoff games after how they performed against Minnesota and Detroit.
What about when one or both of the other three more maligned members of the starting group play, though? Well, when Prince is out there, the Bucks are at least more likely to stay above water at +1.5 next to KPJ and Giannis in 182 possessions. When Kuzma plays, though, it gets scary at -8.5 in 139. Only 22 possessions with that trio are in the black, all when Prince fills the other forward spot and Giannis is the five. Two big lineups with Lopez and Giannis do very well, though, at +12.5 in 197 possessions. In fact, swapping in Lopez for Portis—even smaller sample size warning—in that high-performing closing lineup alongside Giannis, KPJ, Green, and GTJ (+54.6 in 88 possessions) has done even better in 34 possessions, so it’s worth a look too.
But Giannis can’t play all 48 minutes, so in the 6–8 minutes we may not see him, what can the Bucks do? Pray first of all, because without him, lineups made up of the other eight guys are -7.3 in 552 possessions this year. There are a few that may work, though, and of the groups with at least 30 possessions, Portis and Kuzma make up the frontcourt more than two-thirds of the time. All these lineups have both Trent and Green on-court, and as you might expect, these groups have leaned heavily on defense (none have worse than a 107.7 DRtg), even with Portis. There isn’t a common thread to all the Giannis-less lineups that struggle, and even with five average-or-better defenders, they’ve struggled to keep points off the board.
Still, I do see ways the Bucks can at least tread water when Giannis sits. Generally speaking, I think the Pacers just have fewer options. They are all very good ones that were more tested during the regular season than Milwaukee’s best Dame-less units were, but I believe in Giannis’ insane galvanizing power with any other four teammates, even with small (but recent!) sample sizes. I think his presence alone can both absorb Indiana’s punches and hit back harder. Seeing those KPJ lineups really pop in recent weeks gives me even more confidence.
Edge: Bucks
Offense
You already know what I’m going to say here: Giannis, Giannis, Giannis, Giannis. He’s in the midst of perhaps the best stretch of basketball he’s ever played, and he’s even shooting free throws solidly! Thanks in large part to him, Milwaukee’s offense surged to a top-ten unit as the regular season concluded, jumping from 12th to seventh in the last two weeks in CTG’s rankings. As you’d expect, they’ve been the best offense in the league during that stretch. That’ll happen when you have someone averaging 31.5 PPG, 11.3 RPG, 10.4 RPG on .612/.313/.713 over his last eight games.
Remember last year when there was a lot of talk of Indiana having a historically great offense? Not so this year, as they barely cracked CTG’s top ten this year. To be fair, the distance between Milwaukee in seventh and Phoenix in 13th is 0.9 points per 100 possessions. I mainly just want to illustrate that they’re not the same squad that was putting up 123.3 points per game last year. Efficiency-wise, they took a slight step back this year as their three-point rate ticked up a hair, partially they take 4% fewer shots at the rim since Siakam and Turner have both become much more perimeter-oriented. None of this means they can’t still go nuts, though: they dropped 162 and 140 on the league’s two worst teams recently.
Indiana is still a pretty pick-and-roll and transition-oriented offense, among the league’s most effective at both. But they weren’t heavily reliant on fast break points against last year’s Bucks in the first round, who actually held the Pacers to a 119.7 ORtg on the break, nearly 10 points per 100 transition possessions worse than in the regular season. So if they can’t move the ball up the floor as quickly, they’ll probably work the Haliburton and Turner/Siakam P&R as their primary action. Among players involved in at least 100 pick-and-rolls, there is no better ball-handler than Haliburton, with 1.11 points per possession.
Milwaukee is geared more towards halfcourt and isolation, of course, which conventional wisdom suggests translates better to the playoffs. They’re top ten in terms of isolation frequency and points per possession, but Dame is to thank for some of that. The Pacers let them go iso even more often last spring, and Milwaukee made them pay for it, but without Khris Middleton and Damian Lillard, I doubt they’ll score anywhere near the 1.26 PPP those two helped put up. Instead, the Bucks should up their pick-and-roll volume (their 0.96 PPP is just as good as the Pacers’), particularly with any big man and KPJ, who is not far beneath Dame as a 91st percentile ball handler in the P&R.
The Pacers placed 1.2 points per 100 halfcourt possessions below the Bucks, in sixth with 102.1, and both are nearly identical in terms of pick-and-roll PPP, among the league’s best. Milwaukee’s offense was mediocre at best until mid-March, and I think you’d be hard-pressed to say they’re truly the better offensive team. Still, they clearly found something through their final 10 games, and they were the top three-point shooting team in the NBA at just shy of 39%. Add that to Giannis’ longtime dominance over Indiana, and they should be able to match them.
Edge: Push
Defense
Milwaukee rated as a slightly below average unit in transition, with the bulk of that damage coming off live rebounds. Last year, they reduced opponent transition frequency a fair bit upon Doc’s hire, and did a pretty good job thwarting the Pacers on the break during their first-round matchup. I like the Bucks’ personnel better now, and they allowed fewer opportunities from defensive rebounds and steals this regular season than they did in that series last year. I don’t foresee transition being a major factor in 2025 either.
Meanwhile, the Pacers were the league’s best at limiting transition opportunities this year, and the Bucks got on the break at the sixth-smallest rate in 2024–25. So they’ll spend a lot of their time in halfcourt sets on D, and like the Bucks, are merely average there. Both teams are literally the two worst offensive rebounding groups in the NBA, so that’s an Achilles heel that probably won’t hurt the Bucks’ defense as we’ve seen many times. Both teams are vastly improved defensively from last year, but neither is elite.
When these two teams faced off in the regular season, though, Milwaukee’s offense took advantage of Indiana’s defense far more than vice versa. The Pacers’ defensive rating in two of their three losses to the Bucks was above 120, while the Bucks held them to 104.2 in one victory and only once in four contests (also a victory) permitted the Pacers’ offensive rating to crest above its season-long figure of 116.5. In their most impressive win before New Year’s, the Bucks’ 2-3 zone completely neutralized the Pacer attack, and that’s been a common theme against all foes this year: Indy is just 22nd in points per possession against zone. Though Milwaukee’s defense was a bit bad down the stretch (23rd in the final two weeks), it looked outstanding when they went zone, even with Portis at the five.
Ultimately, the Bucks have Giannis, and the Pacers simply have no one who can stop him, while I think the Bucks have some passable-to-good options on Haliburton and Siakam. While Indiana boasts several quality defenders outside of Haliburton and Mathurin, the Bucks have more of them. Trent put in probably his best on-ball defensive work this year against Haliburton. Personnel and zone win out here.
Edge: Bucks
Experience
No longer are the Pacers playoff novices, after a deep run where they took out the East’s second and third-seeded teams in 2024 before running into the Celtics buzzsaw. That’s plenty of playoff equity for the young guys, coupled with Siakam’s and Carlisle’s championship pedigrees. They now know what an extended playoff run and a seven-game series demands.
Without Dame, that’s a lot of postseason games missing from the Bucks’ total. Unless Pat Connaughton plays, the most experienced playoff guys outside of Giannis are Lopez and Portis. Prince has been here for three straight years, but never made it out of the first round. Kuzma got a ring five years ago but hasn’t seen playoff action since 2021. Green and Trent have a handful of games. This will be Rollins’ and Porter’s first playoff appearances.
The three holdovers from the championship team make all the difference here. We haven’t seen Playoff Giannis at full strength since 2022, and a lot of people seem to have forgotten just how good he is once the calendar turns to April.
Edge: Bucks
Health
Though Jericho Sims is expected to be available for Game 1 and no other Bucks seem likely to be anything worse than probable on Saturday, they’re still without their second-best player. I’m operating under the assumption he won’t play, and Milwaukee seems to be too. Giannis missed a game with shoulder tendinopathy on April 6, but clearly wasn’t affected once he returned, sporting a half-sleeve on his left arm. There’s zero indication that any of the reasons why other Bucks missed game 82 are anything significant.
The Pacers only lost non-rotation guys to long-term injuries this year and will enter the postseason with about as clean a bill of health as you can get. Siakam missed a game earlier this month with elbow bursitis, but didn’t look worse for wear coming back. Haliburton missed six games in April with a hip flexor strain, then back soreness. He says he’s dealt with back issues for much of his life, so that’s probably the only thing Indiana needs to keep major tabs on.
Edge: Pacers, yet again
Coaching
These two future Hall-of-Fame coaches didn’t really have a battle of wits last year, with one of them lacking one of the best three players on earth. But Carlisle is the better coach right now, pound-for-pound. He seems to have refocused the Pacers a bit defensively this year without sacrificing too much of the high-octane offense they’re known for. Their identity is no different than the team that reached the East Finals last May. What may be lacking this year is the confidence his players have to beat the Bucks with Giannis. Their ineptitude with the zone is a major issue.
Doc’s teams have long featured zone as a key defensive look, and that will probably be what we see from the Bucks, especially in second halves. I’m pretty confident that any Milwaukee five-man group can successfully execute it, which should do wonders in this series with all the halfcourt possessions. Indiana moves the ball well, with one of the league’s best assist rates, and quicker guards like Rollins and Porter have the Bucks moving faster than the pass as compared to last year.
A few weeks ago, it seemed like Doc’s messaging was falling flat with this group. Poor rebounding and passing were dragging them down, and a lot of fans were writing the Bucks off. Maybe, just maybe, he finally got through to them. Still, I trust Carlisle in a seven-game series more, considering Doc’s recent and more distant history.
Edge: Pacers
This is a much more evenly matched series than last year’s, which at least looked a little closer on paper before it began. Mainly, the Bucks fit together so much better now than this time a year ago, even while down a star yet again. Looking at Indiana, I see seven guys who will help them more than they hurt. In my opinion, that’s what you need to win a series. We saw it firsthand last year, as no Pacer really had a bad series, and in their wins, they had plenty of guys cooking.
The Bucks had awful Jae Crowder, Bobby Portis behaving badly, and injuries. Beyond Middleton, Dame (when he could play), Beverley, and Lopez, they had next to nothing. I’m much more optimistic that six of the eight guys outside of Giannis will be additive this time than I was last spring. Aside from Lopez, I don’t have enough trust in any single guy to help more than he hurts every game. Nevertheless, I think we’ll see at least two guards emerge as quality playoff performers, a steady prince, plus perhaps a Portis redemption. It will be incumbent on Doc to take whomever is hurting them (in order of likelihood: Kuzma, Portis, KPJ, Green) off the floor when it matters most. But the margin for error is a lot bigger with Giannis playing, especially how he has lately.