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    The Milwaukee Bucks Are Betting on Déjà Vu

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    Of course Giannis Antetokounmpo is back this season — but so is almost everyone else. Continuity could give Milwaukee an edge amid the N.B.A.’s roster upheavals.PHILADELPHIA — After Khris Middleton spent his first season in professional basketball with the Detroit Pistons and the Fort Wayne Mad Ants of the N.B.A. Development League, he was traded to the Milwaukee Bucks. At the time, he was merely hoping for steady employment.A few weeks later, when Middleton arrived in Milwaukee for training camp before the start of the 2013-14 season, he was not the only fresh face. He was joined by Giannis Antetokounmpo, a precocious draft pick who proudly professed his love for fruit smoothies and was similarly awe-struck to be in the presence of veteran teammates like Caron Butler, O.J. Mayo and Zaza Pachulia.“They were basketball gods to us at the time,” Middleton said, “just because they’d been so successful in the league for so many years and we were trying to learn everything we could from them.”Even then, Middleton was savvy enough to understand that it would take time to build winning habits. Milwaukee went 15-67 that season to finish with the worst record in the league while ranking last in home attendance. The Bucks were not a product that many people wanted to buy.“It wasn’t going to be an overnight success story,” Middleton said. “We settled in for the long haul.”On Thursday night, as the Bucks christened their new season with a 90-88 win over the 76ers, their days of hard-won habit-building were the stuff of ragged memories. Milwaukee has made six straight playoff appearances, winning a championship in 2021, and figure to be in the mix to win it all again this season.Brook Lopez is in his fifth season with the Bucks. He’s been a steady scorer and defender.Matt Slocum/Associated PressIt helps that Antetokounmpo is one of the best players in the world. After a busy summer that included the release of “Rise,” a Disney+ biopic about his life, and a run in the EuroBasket tournament with Greece’s national team, Antetokounmpo crammed 21 points, 13 rebounds and 8 assists into 36 minutes against the 76ers.“They know how to play with their star,” Sixers Coach Doc Rivers said.But that only comes with continuity, patience and stability — concepts that are increasingly foreign in pro sports.Antetokounmpo and Middleton have been with the Bucks since the dark ages. Brook Lopez and Pat Connaughton, two other members of the team’s core, came to Milwaukee before the start of the 2018-19 season, which was also Mike Budenholzer’s first season as coach. And 14 of the 17 players on the current roster were with the team last season. One of them, Wesley Matthews, made the go-ahead 3-pointer against Philadelphia.“I think it helps us to start the season when other teams have new players, new additions, new coaching staff — all those kinds of changes,” Matthews said. “For the most part, we’re the same team. So being in moments like this, we’ve been there before.”Now in his 15th season, Lopez has played for teams where it took time “to figure stuff out,” he said. Where players needed weeks, or even months, to feel comfortable in new systems. Where training camps included exercises designed to enhance chemistry.“They’re good things, and that’s why people do them,” Lopez said. “But we don’t necessarily need to make people do team bonding or anything like that. It’s very natural around here. We have people hanging out, enjoying each other’s company, and we’re all glad to be a part of this.”Not that the Bucks have been immune to disappointment. In 2018-19, they had the league’s best regular-season record, then lost to the Toronto Raptors in the Eastern Conference finals. It was more of the same the following season: best record, early exit (this time to the Miami Heat in the conference semifinals).“We were disappointed in ourselves,” Lopez said. “We knew we had more to give and more to achieve as a group. We knew we could be better.”After a period of uncertainty for the team and collective anxiety for the Milwaukee area, Budenholzer returned as coach, the Bucks bolstered their backcourt by trading for Jrue Holiday, and Antetokounmpo agreed to a mammoth contract extension. Several months later, the Bucks were N.B.A. champions for the first time since 1971.“The fact that the franchise stuck with us and kept the team together shows that they believed in what they were trying to build,” Middleton said. “And we all wanted to stay and get the job done.”They all were part of Milwaukee’s championship team in 2021: Jrue Holiday, center; back, left to right: Khris Middleton, Lopez, Antetokounmpo, Bobby Portis.Morry Gash/Associated PressThe Bucks have that feeling again after losing to the Boston Celtics in the conference semifinals last season. It hardly helped that Middleton missed the series with a knee injury. And they are not yet whole this season, either: Middleton is rehabilitating from wrist surgery, and Connaughton has a strained calf.Still, the Bucks have their foundation in place.“We’re not talking about our basic defensive or offensive principles,” Connaughton said. “Everybody already knows them. Instead, we’re talking about how to improve.”This is a critical season for Milwaukee. Lopez is in the final season of a four-year deal, and Middleton, who signed a five-year contract with the Bucks in 2019, has a player option for next season. Their futures are uncertain. But nothing lasts forever, and the Bucks want to capitalize while they can. It has taken a long time for them to reach this stage, to have so much familiarity with one another.“It’s rare,” Middleton said. “It’s definitely rare.”On Thursday morning, as the team wrapped up a pregame workout, Middleton was accosted by Joe Ingles, one of the team’s newcomers. After edging Middleton in a friendly shooting competition, Ingles wanted to make sure everyone knew it: “We’ve got 81 more games, and it’s 1-0 to Joe.” Middleton shook his head and laughed.“This,” he said, “is one of the reasons I wish we didn’t make any changes.” More

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      Paul George, Victor Oladipo Talk Return From Injury as Playoffs Begin

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      Paul George is back for the Los Angeles Clippers; Victor Oladipo, for the Miami Heat. The road to return was long but has them back in time for the playoffs.For about a month after he was sidelined with a torn ligament in his right elbow, Paul George could do nothing but wait.He had been through serious injuries before, but the waiting process for this one, in December, was new to him.No activity for a few weeks. He couldn’t get back on the court for more than two months. His body, doctors told him, just needed rest.George would watch N.B.A. games at home with his fiancée, young daughters, newborn son. The children would watch sometimes, but mostly stayed occupied with their iPads while George focused on work.He would pay close enough attention to offer suggestions or words of encouragement to his Los Angeles Clippers teammates via text message. After a while, though, he felt an acute sense of regret.“Early on they did a great job of kind of rallying and keeping together and having a strong season, but as the season went on, they kind of hit a wall and ran out of gas,” George said. “It was very noticeable. It was tough. It was tough to watch that and not be able to help them. I think that was probably the hardest part for me — watching.”When George finally returned on March 29, he promptly scored 34 points to help the Clippers to a comeback win against the Utah Jazz.George is among an unusually large group of players with proven talent who were injured for a considerable part of the 2021-22 regular season. He and others sustained serious injuries, and watched their teams go on without them, while embarking on an often lonely road back. Like George, some of them are returning to their teams just in time for the playoffs and have a chance to change their team’s fortunes dramatically.Victor Oladipo said he had to be be his own “best friend” in motivating himself to push through the long recovery from a leg injury.Marta Lavandier/Associated Press“Having one of our best players back, one of the best players in the league, a guy who’s tremendous on both sides of the ball, does absolutely everything that we ask him and more,” Clippers guard Reggie Jackson said. “Just having him back, having more of our leaders back, you know, face of the franchise and one of the best players in the world, it just gives us more confidence.”George’s teammate Kawhi Leonard has been spotted shooting at the team’s practice facility, having missed the entire season while recovering from A.C.L. surgery. Denver’s Jamal Murray, who had the same surgery, has shown positive signs of recovery, though it is unclear if he will return.Center Brook Lopez returned to the Milwaukee Bucks on March 14 for the first time since the season opener. He had back surgery in December and was listed as “out indefinitely.”“I’ve been through injuries a few times. It’s always just made me appreciate basketball and love it even more,” Lopez told reporters after his first game back. “I try never to take my time on the court for granted, whether it’s practice, shootaround or a game.”He smiled brightly when asked about being back.“I missed it so much,” Lopez said.Miami Heat guard Victor Oladipo knows well the pangs of being away for so long. He had support from friends and family after injuries, but the road back still wasn’t easy.“It can get lonely at times,” Oladipo said. “You’ve got to be your own biggest fan. You’ve got to be your own motivation. You’ve got to self-motivate, you’ve got to talk to yourself, you’ve got to be your best friend.”Oladipo was an All-Star with the Indiana Pacers in 2017-18 and 2018-19. He ruptured his quadriceps tendon in January 2019 and had surgery shortly thereafter. A year later he returned to play but still didn’t feel right.“It feels like it’s you hindering you from being where you need to be,” Oladipo said. “Or that this is your norm and you can never get back to playing freely.”He said he realized soon after his surgery that it had been done incorrectly. He needed a second surgery in May of last year; he did not make his debut this season until last month.Oladipo spent about a month and a half in a cast after the second surgery before restarting the process of learning how to use his legs properly.When he could not be with the team for games, he would sometimes rent out a movie theater at the Brickell City Centre in Miami to watch games by himself, or with his assistant or manager.“The screen is so big, it makes you feel like you’re actually in the game,” Oladipo said.He watched critically, while sitting in the front row, trying to guess how the action would unfold. Sometimes he thought through what decisions he might make if he were the coach.“You want to help the team,” Oladipo said. “If the team is doing well, you want to be part of that. You’ve got to just focus on you and focus on doing the things that you can do in order to get healthy and get right so that you can affect winning and help them the best you can.”Unlike for Lopez and George, Oladipo’s role with the Heat going forward has not been fully established. He has played in only eight games since returning on March 7. On April 3 in Toronto, he scored 21 points.“These are things we have seen daily, behind the scenes,” Chris Quinn, an assistant coach for the Heat, told reporters after the game, while filling in for Coach Erik Spoelstra, who was out because of coronavirus protocols. “It’s the hard work, it’s the grit, it’s the grind. Coming off what he came off injury wise, and for him to get to this point, it’s still part of the process of him becoming what he can be.”The Heat did not play Oladipo in their next two games, but he scored 40 points in the team’s regular-season finale on Sunday.“I’m still capable of doing a lot of good things out there, a lot of great things out there,” Oladipo said in an interview in late March. “Right now, I think my purpose for this team is to do whatever needs to be done in order for us to win.”Bucks center Brook Lopez said he tries not to take basketball for granted after enduring multiple injuries in his career.David Banks/Associated PressThe need for patience doesn’t end once a player returns from injury. Minutes restrictions and nights off are common after a long layoff.For George, that meant that during his second game back — an overtime loss to the Chicago Bulls — he couldn’t play at all in the overtime period.“He tries to lobby, but it’s not up to him,” Clippers Coach Tyronn Lue said of George’s minutes restriction. “Our medical staff is the best in the league, so we give them full responsibility, and allow the player to protect him from himself because he wants to play. All players want to play when they’re on the floor.”As George looks back on the months he spent without being able to play basketball, he acknowledges it was challenging to be forced to stay off the court. But overall he is comfortable with how it went.“I think that’s what made the process so good and that’s what made me feel mentally so great about it,” George said. “There was no low points. I listened to my body; my body was hurt. I knew I needed some time off.”There was a silver lining as well.“I think the positives I took away from it was extended time being with my family,” George said. “Being with my kids. My girl. It was just a lot of time that I got to spend that I don’t usually spend because I’m playing on the road.”The Clippers exceeded expectations without him. While across town the Lakers could not overcome losing LeBron James and Anthony Davis to injury for long stretches, the Clippers qualified for the play-in tournament without having George for most of the season and without having Leonard at all.While Oladipo and the Heat are locked into the top seed of the Eastern Conference playoffs, the Clippers, at No. 8 in the West, will have to fight through the play-in tournament to get either the seventh or eighth seed. They won four of the first five games after George returned. He will get to do a lot more than watch as their postseason begins. More

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      Playoff Makeovers May Upend the N.B.A. Championship Chase

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      Injured stars could return for the postseason, creating an undercurrent of unpredictability for their opponents.Stephen Curry appeared at a recent practice for the Golden State Warriors without a walking boot on his sprained left foot. In Los Angeles, the Clippers’ Kawhi Leonard, who has not played all season, was spotted by local reporters participating in shooting drills. And the Denver Nuggets’ Jamal Murray, also sidelined since last season, is again soaring for dunks, according to some impeccable sources: his own teammates.“Just a matter of time, I guess,” Nuggets guard Monte Morris told reporters recently, “so hopefully we can get him back and make that push.”Ahead of the start of the N.B.A. playoffs on Saturday, a slew of teams, many of them contenders, could be primed for makeovers. Golden State could stage an on-court reunion of its Big Three — Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green — for the first time in the playoffs since 2019. The Nuggets have left the door ajar for Murray’s long-awaited return from knee surgery. The Clippers only recently reintroduced Paul George to their starting lineup after he had been absent since December with a torn ligament in his elbow, and is it possible that Leonard, who injured his right knee last June, could make a surprise appearance in the coming weeks?The list goes on. Ja Morant, the All-Star point guard of the Memphis Grizzlies, just returned from injury over the weekend. And there are teams like the Nets, who now have the luxury of playing Kyrie Irving in home games, and the Milwaukee Bucks, the defending champions, who have been building Brook Lopez’s minutes after he missed 67 games with a bad back. Chris Paul of the Phoenix Suns is getting back into rhythm after missing a month with a thumb injury.What does it all mean? Potential headaches for opponents, and an undercurrent of unpredictability that will run through the early rounds of the postseason.Suns guard Chris Paul missed a month down the stretch because of a thumb injury. He averaged 12.7 points and 11.2 assists per game in his first six games back.Joe Rondone/USA Today Sports, via Reuters“I think it’s unusual that we’re waiting to hear about that from so many teams,” Stan Van Gundy, the former N.B.A. coach, said in a telephone interview, “and that guys could come back in the playoffs who either haven’t played all year or for a good part of the year.”Facing teams with stars who may or may not play creates a unique set of challenges for opposing coaches, said Eric Musselman, a former coach of the Warriors and the Sacramento Kings who now coaches the men’s basketball team at Arkansas. On the one hand, he said, you want to relay to your team that the injured player will be a threat if he actually appears in uniform.“I’ll never say, ‘This guy might be out of sync,’ or, ‘He’s going to be rusty,’” Musselman said. “It’s always: ‘This guy is an All-Star, he’s been working out, and he’s in playoff shape.’ You need to be ready for anything.”On the other hand, Musselman said, you need to guard against a letdown in focus and intensity if that player winds up sitting out. Uncertainty, in its own way, can create a competitive advantage.So even if the Nuggets decide not to play Murray in the playoffs, or the Nets officially pull the plug on Ben Simmons and his balky back, it might behoove those teams to keep that information to themselves, Van Gundy said. There is no harm, he said, in leaving opponents guessing. Force them to concoct multiple game plans. Make them plan for something that will never happen.“I’m going to want to add to your preparation time,” said Van Gundy, now an analyst for TNT and Turner Sports.Van Gundy cited the Orlando Magic’s 2009 playoff run when they faced the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference semifinals. Kevin Garnett, the Celtics’ star center, had been sidelined for several weeks with an injured knee, and Van Gundy, who was the Magic’s coach at the time, said he knew there was “virtually no chance” that Garnett would make an appearance in the series. But Garnett was still a presence on Orlando’s scouting report, and the team still studied film of him.Jamal Murray has yet to play this season after injuring his knee last year, but he could be a difference-maker for the Nuggets in the playoffs.Ethan Mito/Clarkson Creative/Getty Images“If he came back, we didn’t want to lose a game in a seven-game series because we got caught by surprise,” Van Gundy said.Over the coming days and weeks, opposing coaches will overprepare for the possibility that long-injured stars could return, said Brendan Suhr, a former longtime N.B.A. assistant. And if one does?“I’m immediately going to trap him,” Suhr said. “I’m going to try to do stuff he’s not used to seeing. I would make it very difficult for him. Because his workouts, especially his noncontact workouts, were very soft — coming off pick-and-rolls, getting into rhythm, making shots. And now I’m going to force him to make very tough, under-pressure decisions.”At the other end of the court, make that player defend. “Especially if he’s coming back from a leg injury,” Suhr said.With all that in mind, teams with stars on the mend must weigh the delicate calculus about whether to bring them back at all — and if so, when. Will they be ineffective? Susceptible to further harm? Van Gundy recalled a conversation he had with Tyronn Lue, the coach of the Clippers, last month, before George returned to the team’s lineup on March 29.“He was talking about how there would be a cutoff point in terms of bringing Paul George back,” Van Gundy said. “If he couldn’t get in X amount of regular-season games, he wouldn’t want to play him in the playoffs.”There are, of course, cautionary tales from playoffs past. Consider Golden State’s tortured postseason experience in 2019, when Kevin Durant, who was then one of the team’s stars, strained his right calf in the Western Conference semifinals. After missing nine straight games, he returned for Game 5 of the N.B.A. finals against the Toronto Raptors and ruptured his right Achilles’ tendon. The Warriors lost the series, and Durant missed the entire 2019-20 season after signing with the Nets.Michael Malone, the coach of the Nuggets, told reporters this month that Murray “wants to be back” and that the team was “keeping hope alive.” Nikola Jokic, the Nuggets’ do-everything center and a favorite to repeat as the league’s most valuable player, sounded more cautious about the situation.The Grizzlies have been fearsome with and without Ja Morant, center, who is expected to return for the playoffs.Petre Thomas/USA Today Sports, via Reuters“I told him, ‘If you’re not 100 percent ready to go, don’t come back,’” Jokic said. “It’s stupid. You’re going to get injured. I mean, if you’re not 100 percent ready to go, especially for the playoffs …”His voice trailed off.After getting past the Garnett-less Celtics in 2009, the Magic advanced to the N.B.A. finals that year against the Los Angeles Lakers. Ahead of Game 1, Van Gundy decided to activate Jameer Nelson, his starting point guard. Nelson had missed the previous four months with a torn labrum in his right shoulder. Van Gundy opted to bring him off the bench against the Lakers.“He was our leader, and he was having an All-Star year until he got hurt,” Van Gundy recalled.And because Nelson was returning from a shoulder injury, that meant that he had been able to run and stay in relatively decent shape during his long layoff.“That’s a little different than if you’ve got a knee injury and you’re limited in what you can do,” Van Gundy said.Still, even with Nelson back in the rotation, the Magic lost the series in five games. Van Gundy has never regretted the move.“You want to go into the biggest games with your best people,” he said. More