Bucks need to lean on young wings to save their season

The Milwaukee Bucks had run off an impressive 6-1 record in their last seven games prior to getting smoked by the Toronto Raptors on Sunday afternoon. While it is only one game, the Raptors without franchise player Scottie Barnes (out due to personal reasons) is the kind of team Milwaukee needs to stack wins against as the Bucks keep clawing back toward the play-in tournament.

To lose a battle of short-handed teams (the Bucks are still without Giannis Antetokounmpo after all) is one thing, but to lose by nearly 30 is another. Outside of a virtuoso performance from Kevin Porter Jr., the rest of the Bucks struggled to sustain consistent offense.

Individual scoring and creation from Porter Jr. and new Buck Cam Thomas had been half of Milwaukee’s successful formula on offense in many of those wins, but Milwaukee can’t just rely on those players to power an entire game’s worth of scoring. The Bucks played beautiful team basketball in those six wins, including what might have been their best play of the season in Milwaukee’s win against the decimated OKC Thunder right before the break.

best offensive possession in the doc era and it's so funny that it comes in a game that doc wasn't there for. pic.twitter.com/m9EFFSiLMD
— Dabby (@hiimdabby) February 13, 2026

The fulcrum of that play was Pete Nance, Larry Nance Jr.’s brother and a two-way player for the Bucks who got an opportunity this season due to all of the injuries Milwaukee has faced. Nance has been a legitimate revelation, and not just because he’s been shooting a scorching 51% from three.

The play linked above stood out so much because this Bucks team isn’t filled with smart, instinctive off-ball players. Bucks GM Jon Horst built a roster with a lot of shooting and some dynamic guards along with Giannis, but the connective tissue pieces who glue great lineups together were lacking.

Nance, thus far, has been one of those pieces. Milwaukee has a +6.7 net rating when Nance is on the court, a mark higher than the one the Bucks sport with Giannis on the floor. Milwaukee’s offense and defense are both better with Nance on than they are overall this season, an especially remarkable stat given just one of Nance’s 25 games has featured minutes where he’s played with Giannis.

That plus/minus isn’t the highest on the Bucks though. Fellow young forward Ousmane Dieng has seen even better results, with Milwaukee winning his minutes by 8.6 points per 100 possessions. The sample size here is smaller, and Dieng hasn’t shown the advanced feel Nance has on both ends, but the ball-handling, shooting off the dribble, and athleticism to push the ball on the break have been apparent.

Both the eye test and the data support that leaning into Nance and Dieng should be good for the Bucks. Milwaukee’s coaching staff ignored both of those points on Sunday. In the Bucks’ stomping at the hands of the Raptors, Nance and Dieng combined to play 20 minutes, with Nance only getting 5:20 and Dieng logging less than 15 minutes.

Neither player had a great showing in their limited time, but one stint each prior to garbage time (Dieng logged 6 and a half of his 14 minutes and change in the fourth quarter) is simply not enough for these two. It’s not a coincidence that Milwaukee went from mostly hapless without Giannis to rolling into the break with him shelved and Dieng and Nance playing larger roles.

Kyle Kuzma, Bobby Portis, and Myles Turner all missed at least one game in addition to Giannis being out in recent weeks. Additionally, Taurean Prince has missed all but a handful of games this season and doesn’t appear close to a return. Those injuries opened the door for Doc Rivers to call on the younger forwards to play, but veterans getting healthy shouldn’t push Doc away from what has worked as quickly as it did Sunday, with Kuzma, Portis, and Turner all back in the lineup.

Sometimes NBA coaching staffs and front offices are put into a difficult decision: to play young players for future goals, or lean on veterans to win more in the short term. This is not one of those situations. Developing Nance and Dieng is certainly best in the medium-term for the Bucks, who need as many hits around the margins as they can find, but it’s also what will lead to the most wins this season. Kuzma and Portis may be respected and well-paid veterans, but that shouldn’t guarantee them rotation spots.

Milwaukee is way past desperate at 24-31, and Rivers needs to stay creative with rotations and lineups if he and the Bucks are serious about getting into the playoff picture and giving Giannis an extra chance to compete in the postseason.