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Damian Lillard on what defenses look like now that he’s playing with the Milwaukee Bucks: “It definitely feels different”

Bucks' opponents will have to pick their poison.
Jonas Panerio|
Damian Lillard on what defenses look like now that he’s playing with the Milwaukee Bucks: “It definitely feels different”
Damian Lillard on what defenses look like now that he’s playing with the Milwaukee Bucks: “It definitely feels different”

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Milwaukee Bucks

Throughout his 11-year career with the Portland Trail Blazers, Damian Lillard has seen every kind of defensive coverage imaginable in the NBA, all geared towards stopping or, at least, slowing him down. Now that he's a Milwaukee Buck, he reports that things feel different when he's on the court.

One of the main reasons for this change is that Lillard is now playing alongside two-time MVP and former Defensive Player of the Year Giannis Antetokounmpo. With Antetokounmpo commanding so much attention from opposing defenses and experienced players like Khris Middleton and Brook Lopez providing help, it opens up more opportunities for Lillard to operate and find open shots.

More space to work with

Lillard's time in Portland was marked by plenty of brilliant individual performances and not much team success. Even though the Blazers had other stellar players like LaMarcus Aldridge and CJ McCollum, there wasn't enough firepower in Portland's arsenal to run the gauntlet in the Western Conference. That's not the case with the Bucks.

“It definitely feels different,” Lillard said in an interview with The Athletic. “And it looks different because you got shooters all over the floor, too. You got Beas (Malik Beasley) out there, Brook (Lopez) is out there, Jae (Crowder) has been out there. At one point during the week, Khris (Middleton) was out there, and it was just shooters everywhere. So the floor was just so much more open.”

“It just seems like there’s a lot of options, as opposed to everybody just being like, ‘Get it out of his hands.’ So it feels a lot different in that way. And literally in my head, I’m thinking sometimes, ‘Is this just because it’s practice, or is this how it’s going to look?'”

Natural playmaker

Lillard emphasized that while his scoring abilities have been usually highlighted, he's also a natural playmaker who can excel in different systems. He feels that playing with the Bucks will allow him to showcase this aspect of his game more.

“What people don’t know about me is I’m naturally a playmaker. Like, I come off, and I’ll make the right play over and over and over and over. But you know, my role is I’ve had to be more aggressive. I’ve always had to be aggressive, and if you look back to when I played with LaMarcus Aldridge and Wes Matthews and Nic Batum, I was always just making the play, and then I’d have little spurts where I would score some points and I’d just average 20 points.”

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Jonas Panerio
JONAS PANERIO