Milwaukee Bucks vs. Philadelphia 76ers Preview: Primetime Slugfest

It’s been nothing but sunny skies for Milwaukee Bucks fans the past six weeks, all the team does is keep winning, but now they face one of their staunchest tests yet in the Philadelphia 76ers. The rivalry has yet to calcify in the Playoffs yet, but these two have delivered some of the best regular season matchups of the past few seasons. Here’s hoping we get another one...by which I mean a Bucks rout.

Where We’re At

Giannis is taking charges. Jrue is stealing cookies and bullying guards in the paint. The team is locking down opponents. Life is good in the locker room.

Taking down the Brooklyn Nets and Orlando Magic wasn’t too tall an order for this team, but it was still impressive to see the second half in New York and the dominating offensive play for 48 minutes against John Hammond’s latest Team Length. I, for one, am looking forward to seeing what Giannis has in store for the Philly squad tonight.

Philadelphia may be third in the East, but they’ve been impressive enough in their own right that they were talked about at points with Boston and Milwaukee atop the conference. I still don’t see them at that level, but we know the Embiid-Harden pick-and-roll can cause problems for Milwaukee’s drop coverage. They’ve also added stout defenders surrounding their sieve-like backcourt, with De’Anthony Melton and PJ Tucker. Tucker, in particular, will be fun to see how he matches up against Giannis with his typical physicality. They’re coming off a loss against the Dallas Mavericks on Thursday night though, giving up 82 to Luka and Kyrie combined. A full five games back of Milwaukee, the Sixers really need this one to maintain any hope of climbing the standings.

Wes Matthews is out for Milwaukee. No major injury issues for the Sixers.

Player to Watch

Grayson Allen has been showing confidence pulling up in transition from deep to nail difficult threes, and Milwaukee will need his shotmaking in this one. The question will be if Philadelphia targets him at all on the other end. In the Brooklyn game, Bud trusted him to take on the Mikal Bridges defensive assignment for much of the night. Statistically, it looks bad, but anecdotally, I really thought he bodied him up well and gave decent effort. Milwaukee will need him to hold serve as a role player against the Sixers own fleet of non-stars.

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