{"id":179145,"date":"2026-02-26T22:32:40","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T03:32:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=179145"},"modified":"2026-02-26T22:32:40","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T03:32:40","slug":"bucks-playing-the-best-basketball-of-the-season-as-they-make-run-at-playoff-spot-plus-injury-and-roster-moves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2026\/02\/26\/bucks-playing-the-best-basketball-of-the-season-as-they-make-run-at-playoff-spot-plus-injury-and-roster-moves\/","title":{"rendered":"Bucks Playing The Best Basketball Of The Season As They Make Run At Playoff Spot; Plus, Injury and Roster Moves"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Milwaukee Bucks<\/a> are arguably playing their best basketball of the season and are making a move to up the Eastern Conference standings. If the Bucks can secure a Top-10 spot in the Eastern Conference, can they make some noise?<\/p>\n

Bucks Playing The Best Basketball Of The Season As They Make A Run At A Playoff Spot; Plus, Injury and Roster Moves<\/h2>\n

Milwaukee moved within one and one-half games of the conference’s final Play-In spot, following the Bucks’ 118-116 victory over Cleveland<\/a> last night.\u00a0 Kevin Porter Jr<\/a>., who has stepped up his production post all-star break, led seven players in double-figures with 20 on 10 of 16 shooting. He also added eight rebounds, five assists, and five steals.<\/p>\n

The victory was the Bucks’ second straight and eighth win in their last 10 games — their best stretch all season. The Bucks are now 26-31 on the season. They are also just four games behind eighth-place Miami with 25 contests to go.<\/p>\n

Moreover, Milwaukkee has the fifth-best record in the league this month (8-3). A big reason for the Bucks’ recent success is their improvement on the offensive end. The Bucks rank seventh in offensive rating this month, shooting 49.4% from the field and making 15.4 threes at 39.8% from 3-point range. They have also defended pretty well, although 3-point defense and fouling have been issues.<\/p>\n

Perhaps more significantly, the Bucks’ recent success has happened without Giannis Antetokounmpo.<\/a>\u00a0 The Bucks’ backcourt has led the way during this stretch, with Porter Jr., Ryan Rollins,<\/a> and Cam Thomas<\/a> all averaging over 15 points and combining for nearly 59 points, 15 assists, and 13 rebounds. Jericho Sims<\/a>, AJ Green<\/a>, and Kyle Kuzma<\/a> have also played well recently. The Bucks are now 11-16 without their star forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the more that we\u2019ve been working out together, getting some practice (and) some two-mans in, we\u2019re just confident in those stretches,\u201d\u00a0Porter told Eric Nehm of The Athletic<\/a> about him and Rollins starting and closing games together.\u00a0\u201cWe gotta continue to do it. There\u2019s nothing like game reps at the end of the day. It\u2019s been a long season, so we\u2019ve had those reps early on, but we were able to learn from those reps, also. So, I think that\u2019s what you\u2019re seeing a little bit of.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Will Giannis Antetokounmpo Return and Roster Move<\/h3>\n

<\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n

Milwaukee has the ninth-easiest schedule remaining,<\/a> with 14 of its remaining games at home. The Bucks have been slightly better at home and have handled opponents with a sub. 500 record –posting a 16-8 record with a +2.6 scoring margin.<\/p>\n

While Milwaukee has been much better without Antetokounmpo, the Bucks will need the Greek Freak<\/a> healthy if they have any hopes of making a playoff run. Antetokounmpo will miss his 14th straight game as he has already been ruled out against the New York Knicks<\/a> due to his right calf injury. However, Doc Rivers<\/a> said that Antekounmpo is close to returning.<\/p>\n

“[Rivers] reiterated Antetokounmpo doesn\u2019t need 5-on-5 work and is close based on the eye test,” Jim Owczarski of the Milwaukee Sentinel<\/a> tweeted yesterday before the Bucks’ win over the Cavaliers.<\/p>\n

Cormac Ryan Promoted<\/h4>\n

Earlier today, Milwaukee made a minor roster move. The Bucks filled their empty two-way contract by promoting Cormac Ryan,<\/a> who had been playing well for their G-League squad, the Wisconsin Herd.<\/p>\n

Ryan got his NBA shot due to his shooting ability and toughness. He also doesn’t make many mistakes and competes defensively.<\/p>\n

Ryan went undrafted in 2024 out of North Carolina<\/a>. Ryan has averaged 20.4 points, 4.6 rebounds, and 2.8 assists in 31.2 minutes over 29 games for the Herd this year. The 27-year-old forward, who poured in a season-high 34 points on Tuesday against the Windy City Bulls, has topped the 20-point mark 17 times while scoring in double-figures all 29 contests. He averages three triples a game while posting a slash line of 48.9\/42.3\/88.4.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ryan is eligible to be active for 13 NBA regular-season games. However, he will likely continue to spend most of his time with Herd.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a9 Jeff Hanisch<\/a>, Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Milwaukee Bucks are arguably playing their best basketball of the season and are making a move to up the Eastern Conference standings. If the Bucks can secure a Top-10 spot in the Eastern Conference, can they make some noise? Bucks Playing The Best Basketball Of The Season As They Make A Run At A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3146,"featured_media":179165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,2,15,62],"tags":[50290,190,306,1958],"class_list":["post-179145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-featured","category-bucks","category-nba","tag-cormac-ryan","tag-doc-rivers","tag-giannis-antetokounmpo","tag-kevin-porter-jr"],"modified_by":"Daniel Benjamin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179145"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":179175,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179145\/revisions\/179175"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}