LaMelo Ball has spent his first seven games in Minnesota as a jump shooter who passes. Against the Bucks on Monday, I want him to be a driver who passes. Milwaukee gives up shots at the rim more freely than almost anyone and almost never takes the ball away, and that combination is the softest target the Wolves will see this week.
Saturday’s 121-111 loss in San Antonio was the opposite assignment. Ball went 2-for-10 with five turnovers and fouled out in 20 minutes, per the Basketball Reference box score, while Victor Wembanyama scored 43 and blocked six shots. Nobody should drive into Wembanyama on purpose. The 1-5 Bucks are a different problem, and the Wolves should treat them that way.
Milwaukee lets you get all the way there
The numbers on Milwaukee’s defense are ugly across the board. Per Basketball Reference’s league page, the Bucks have a 122.1 defensive rating, 28th of 30 teams. Opponents are making 57.8% of their twos against them.
Opponents have taken 29.0% of their field-goal attempts against Milwaukee from within three feet, the third-highest share in the league. The league average is 23.5%. When teams get there, they’ve made 71.8% of those shots, above the league’s 69.0%.
Myles Turner is the rim protector, and he’s averaging 2.5 blocks in 26.2 minutes, per the Bucks’ Basketball Reference page. That’s real. It also leaves about 22 minutes a night without him. Across all 48, only two teams have allowed a bigger share of their opponents’ shots at the rim.
Ball has been living outside
Of Ball’s 12.7 shots per game, 65.2% have been threes, and only 11.2% have come from within three feet, per the Wolves’ Basketball Reference page. He’s made 60% of those close looks. He’s shooting 34.5% from deep.
Against San Antonio, staying outside was the right idea. Against Milwaukee it leaves the defense’s biggest weakness untouched.
The turnover worry doesn’t hold up against this opponent. Ball is averaging 3.7 turnovers, and he had five on Saturday. But the Bucks force turnovers on 10.9% of opponent plays, the lowest rate in the NBA, per Basketball Reference’s league page. A team that rarely takes the ball away is the safest place to try the riskier drive-and-kick.
The fouls are the honest counterargument. Ball is averaging 4.3 per game, and his sixth on Saturday was an offensive foul with 3:43 left, per ESPN’s play-by-play. I wrote last week that his four-foul nights were a problem the blowouts were hiding, and San Antonio is where it finally cost him. Driving more means more contact. I’ll still take that trade against a team that sends opponents to the line 27.8 times a game (the league average is 25.3), because some of that contact should send Ball to the line.
The finishers are already there
The best part of the case is who catches Ball’s passes when he gets two feet into the paint. Ayo Dosunmu has taken 30.9% of his shots from within three feet and made 84.0% of them. Jaden McDaniels is at 90.9% from that range. Dosunmu just scored 27 on 11-of-17 shooting in San Antonio.
That’s why I’d rather see Ball at the rim than at the top of the key. He doesn’t need to finish every drive himself. He needs to collapse a defense that’s already leaking, then find the cutter. As a team, Minnesota has taken 24.0% of its shots from within three feet, barely above the league average. Monday is the night to push that number up.
Gobert’s back decides the glass
Rudy Gobert missed Saturday with back spasms, according to the AP recap on ESPN. That matters more for the rebounding than for the drives.
Minnesota has out-rebounded its opponent in all four of its wins, per the Wolves’ game log. In regulation losses to Golden State and San Antonio, the Wolves lost the boards 53-42 and 49-38. The Spurs grabbed 16 offensive rebounds on Saturday.
Milwaukee can crash, too. The Bucks rebound 29.9% of their misses, above the league’s 27.3%, and Kel’el Ware is pulling 3.5 offensive boards in under 20 minutes a night. If Gobert sits again, Joan Beringer has to hold up for big minutes. He played 34 in San Antonio with five offensive rebounds and five fouls, which is the trade-off we flagged when we called him the backup center if he stopped fouling. He does his work at the rim, too: 87.9% of his shots have come from within three feet. A Ball drive that pulls Turner or Ware toward the ball leaves Beringer one step from a dunk or a putback.
At the other end, Tyler Herro is the shooter to stay attached to. He’s averaging 22.0 points and making 3.5 of his 7.8 threes a game. Run him off the line. Milwaukee takes 45.8% of its shots from three, and I’d make every one of them a contested look.
What I’ll be watching
The game tips at 7 p.m. Central at Target Center, per ESPN’s event feed, and it’s on the Wolves’ DAZN channel (our TV guide has the details). Minnesota is 4-3 and still without Anthony Edwards after his knee surgery. Milwaukee’s only win came against Indiana, and it just lost 136-111 to Cleveland on Saturday.
For the full picture of who’s available in the frontcourt, the Wolves roster and depth chart has the bigs behind Gobert. My test for Monday is simple: count Ball’s trips into the paint in the first quarter. If he has three or four by the first timeout, the Bucks’ defense will start bending the way the numbers say it will. If he spends the night at 28 feet, the Wolves will have wasted the softest defense they’ll see this week.