For years, we’ve heard about how Giannis Antetokounmpo at the five seemed like a natural pathway for the Milwaukee Bucks to dominate the smallball evolution of the modern NBA. And for years, we never quite got to see it fully unleashed. Yes, there have been various permutations of it, with Marvin Williams, with Ersan Ilyasova, with Nikola Mirotic. And we all know how those went...but finally (finally!) in this year’s Playoffs, we’ve seen Coach Bud fully embrace a smallball unit to stellar success.
As always, massive caveats abound with these numbers; lineup data is tricky, and doubly so in small sample sizes, but that’s all we’ve got with postseason analysis.