How one training camp practice illustrated a 'new era' of Milwaukee Bucks basketball
Giannis Antetokounmpo ambled down the stairs from the Sports Science Center practice courts Oct. 6, hours after the Milwaukee Bucks had concluded practice, ice packs still on his knees. And he was fired up.
As he wrapped up his feelings on the first week of training camp under new head coach Adrian Griffin, he was animated, talking with his hands, getting excited about practicing defense.
But it was more than that.
The Bucks had gone hard at one another for about two hours that Friday afternoon before the first preseason game against Chicago the next day. It was their first full team practice, with Khris Middleton being cleared to participate, and they got after one another.
On the surface, it aligned with one of Griffin’s core coaching beliefs in fostering competition. But before camp started, he told the Journal Sentinel there might be a little extra behind that noun.
“I think the good teams pull for each other,” he began. “They push and they pull for each other. They push each other. It’s not always going to be pretty. ... You gotta push people out of their comfort zone. If there’s always rainbows; because when you get in the playoffs there’s going to be a lot of adversity.
“So, your team has to be comfortable dealing with adversity and see adversity as more of a challenge and opportunity to grow and get better. So, we invite conflict. How we respond to it, is what’s going to set us up for the future.”
Conflict within competition is a line to walk, but it’s not novel – it’s just new to these Bucks. Pat Connaughton, Bobby Portis and Antetokounmpo wanted it to be clear that the tone, the physicality, of practice is different – not necessarily better or worse than the type of environment former coach Mike Budenholzer created.
After all, the Bucks won a championship, advanced to two conference finals and won a league-best 271 regular season games in the last five seasons.
"The way we approach training camp and the way we approach practice so far has been incredible because we are literally changing our identity," Antetokounmpo said. "We're being a little bit more scrappy. We will help one another. Obviously, we've been one of the best defensive teams in the league the last five years, so it's not that you gotta come here and you change a lot of things, but I feel like, you just got to sharpen the tool, you gotta add more edge to the team."
New coach Adrian Griffin is allowing Bucks players to be themselves
One of Griffin’s ideas for building on that foundation and adding edge was to introduce an aggressive punch-first mentality on defense. One-on-one tournaments were introduced the first week of camp. There are winners for drills and shooting competitions. Griffin also wanted his players to be themselves. His first camp practice Oct. 2 was essentially just letting the team play together.
By the end of that week, if being yourself meant talking trash, setting hard screens, literally pushing and pulling – then that’s what was encouraged.
“I mean, it’s just a different feel from years (past),” Portis told the Journal Sentinel. “I hate comparing things like that, but s---, some things weren’t allowed in the past. Some things you’d have to be quiet about, or not show too much personality or whatever it is.
“This is definitely a new era of Milwaukee Bucks basketball and I’m excited for it. Just our physicality, us talking, being more vocal, being more connected.”
It's why Antetokounmpo was still in a lather hours after that practice.
“I love it so far, I'm not even gonna lie,” Antetokounmpo began. “I feel like our physicality is on another level. Guys are extremely competitive. Every game we play, it's a competitive game from start to finish. Everything is competitive. Every drill, we participate, we do, as I said, it's competitive. We go at one another.
“(Oct. 6) was the first time in like six, seven years that I saw guys going at it. They were head-to-head, talking crap in their face and like, 'No this is mine. This is my team' 'No, that's my teammate, don't hit my teammate. I'm going to check you.' You know what I'm saying? Like, 'Don't you do that again.’ And like, 'No, get out of here' and I don't want to say exactly what they said, but they were just going back and forth, and I love it.
“I feel like Coach ‘Griff,’ allows us to be us. You know, he allows Bobby to be Bobby, allows Malik Beasley to be Malik, allows Jae Crowder to be Jae Crowder, and allows Giannis, if Giannis wants to elbow somebody, you can do it, and he's not even gonna step to it. He's going to let us do that. We're big boys, we're mature, we're men, you know. We know how to play this game and he's gonna let us play this game. And if sometimes, it's gonna get chippy, he's gonna let us do that, but he wants us to compete.”
All of that is done respectfully, of course.
They are all teammates and its physical competition in the name of making one another better for the long run. Crowder said hearing from Griffin about what would be expected of the players – and how they would compete – was a huge draw in his return. Thanasis Antetokounmpo called it a different value system amongst the coaches. Beasley told the Journal Sentinel he wanted Bucks fans to know he’s a high energy player like Portis.
Portis smiled.
“I think it’s cool to have more guys that’s like me, you know?” he said with a laugh.
“Sometimes it doesn’t come down to scoring a basket or things like that. Sometimes it comes down to the physicality, it comes down to the hustle plays, it comes down to the 50-50 balls, it comes down to who want it more.”
The coaches are tracking defensive rebounds, deflections, how many times a player pressures the ball, gets in passing lanes and shows hands to eliminate gaps and seams. An eagle screech can be heard echoing around the Sports Science Center at times, illustrating that connectivity.
“It just brings everything together,” Crowder told the Journal Sentinel. “When you battle a guy in practice, you know once it comes game time that same guy has my back. Just like he just battled me, he’s going to battle that next guy when the lights turn on. It just builds on a level of confidence in one another and knowing that your teammate is going to give his best shot no matter what. That’s all it is.”
Griffin said before the team embarked on this three-game, weeklong road trip that practice matters, that getting in quality reps behind closed doors with one another was just as valuable as the managed exhibition minutes.
"Almost a coach's dream where we can compete, practice and compete again,” he said on Monday.
More: Giannis Antetokounmpo turned up the pressure on the Bucks. Now he must deliver.
How does physical practice translate to Bucks games?
The players, from the rawest rookie to the most veteran, said the head-to-head competition with one another has fostered chemistry and quickly set the tone for what this Bucks team will be about.
“I’ve been coming from situations where there is competition with one another before you even get on the court – it’s normal,” said Crowder, who joined the Bucks last February after spending 10 years in the league with seven other teams.
“It was new for me to come here, and everything is so laid back last year and so country clubish. You need to push everybody. Iron sharpens another iron, so if you have players that are willing to challenge other players in practice, it only makes the game much easier. So it’s a great environment. It’s great competition. Everything is a competition. Everyone is trying to be their best and trying to win whatever drill it is. So it just brings out the best in everybody.”
Griffin admitted there won’t be as many opportunities to practice like this in the regular season, so he’s pushing – and pulling – hard on his team. Only time will tell if these adjustments in mindset and scheme ultimately lead to a different playoff outcome than the last two years, but Griffin has found a throughline with his team that everyone can all pull together on.
“Previously, in other years, it was a different philosophy,” Antetokounmpo said. “But I'm really, like right now, I'm really enjoying this. It's extremely competitive. I love when guys are going out there and they're trying to compete to win games. And I think this is going to carry over through the season. And this is all we need, like we need to take that pride. We need to take that challenge.”
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee Bucks enter aggressive new era under coach Adrian Griffin
