The No. 3 seed Milwaukee Bucks take on the No. 6 seed Chicago Bulls in the first round of the 2022 Eastern Conference Playoffs beginning with Game 1 on Sunday. While the reigning champion Bucks did not earn a top-two seed in the East, many project a relatively breezy outlook for Milwaukee in the opening round, particularly when noting Chicago’s 20-26 record over the final 46 games.
Still, the Bucks must take care of business in the opening round to set up a potential repeat bid, and Milwaukee is still rounding into form. Injuries kept the Bucks from deploying their best possible lineups for the majority of the season, and Milwaukee’s regular-season profile does not necessarily match the expectations for what Mike Budenholzer’s team can be at full strength.
On the Chicago side, the Bulls were off to a storybook start after making big splashes in the offseason, only to encounter considerable injury challenges in their own right. Lonzo Ball is unavailable for the Bulls, leaving a gaping hole as a defender and perimeter shooting threat, and Chicago is searching for answers defensively even as the postseason arrives. Still, there are the bones of a team that started the season at 26-10 and as the No. 1 team in the East, and we’ll explore a trio of questions as to how this series might proceed.
Can the Bulls even pretend to slow Giannis Antetokounmpo?
With all due respect to DeMar DeRozan, Zach Lavine and a couple of his own teammates from Milwaukee, Giannis Antetokounmpo is the best player in this series. As such, one can expect Antetokounmpo to put up big-time numbers, and he is in the mix for a third MVP award for a reason. However, there are some teams that match up better with Antetokounmpo than others, and the Bulls are not on that list.
Chicago does have a big, athletic forward in Patrick Williams, and there is buzz that the Bulls may use him as a primary defender against Antetokounmpo. That isn’t the craziest idea when examining the roster for the Bulls, but Williams is 20 years old and has appeared in only 17 games this season. After that, Chicago might try to use a pure big like Tristan Thompson against him, but to make it clear, the Bulls don’t appear to have anyone that can really stand in Antetokounmpo’s way.
That isn’t to say that Antetokounmpo can’t get lost in the sauce for a game or two, especially if his shooting stroke abandons him, but the Bucks have Giannis and the Bulls don’t.
Can DeMar DeRozan go nuclear to keep Chicago in the mix?
Speaking of DeRozan, he was at least a fringe MVP candidate for a while after one of the crazier clutch shooting runs in recent memory. That cooled down as Chicago lost steam on the whole, but DeRozan still shot 50.4 percent from the floor on the way to 27.9 points per game over the full season. On offense, he is fully capable of matching Antetokounmpo stride-for-stride at times, and Chicago’s best path to success might be to keep things close and let DeRozan work his magic in crunch time.
Unlike the Antetokounmpo matchup for Chicago, Milwaukee does have an ace in the hole with Jrue Holiday, but Holiday might be focused on LaVine, depending on how Milwaukee chooses to line up on defense. The Bucks don’t have another “shutdown” guy on the wing, but they do have options, ranging from Wes Matthews to Khris Middleton or even Giannis in a switch. One thing is certain, though, and that is the Bulls don’t seem to stand a chance without a top-tier performance from DeRozan.
Who wins the center matchup between Brook Lopez and Nikola Vucevic?
It’s not as if Vucevic was flat-out bad this season by any means. He averaged a double-double and had plenty of impressive moments, but his first full campaign in Chicago was marked by less than stellar efficiency and some defensive foibles, particularly once Chicago’s point-of-attack defense deteriorated due to injury. One of the broader questions of the series is how Chicago holds up defensively with Vucevic on the floor, as they will probably need him on offense to keep this interesting.
With that out of the way, the Vucevic question is, at least in part, a pathway to discussing Brook Lopez. The veteran big man missed most of the season, appearing in only 13 games, and the Bucks were hardly ever at full strength as a result. It would be fair to say that Lopez is, at least potentially, the fourth-best player for Milwaukee, and they will need him to be his old self in order to make the kind of repeat run that they desire.
On Chicago’s side, Vucevic likely needs to win this matchup decisively to pave the way for an upset. Given the massive gap in series projections, both in the betting market and elsewhere, the more intriguing story might simply be how Lopez looks and what the Bucks can count on from the center position in moments when Antetokounmpo isn’t occupying it as a part of a small-ball look.