Bobby Portis returns, AJ Green's passing and Kyle Kuzma's fit: Bucks observations

MILWAUKEE — On Tuesday night, Bobby Portis will suit up in a game for the Milwaukee Bucks for the first time in nearly two months.

Coincidentally, Portis last played on Feb. 12 in a 103-101 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Bucks’ opponent on Tuesday, in the team’s last game before the All-Star break. On Feb. 20, before Milwaukee returned to action after the break, the NBA suspended Portis for 25 games for testing positive for Tramadol, an opioid on the NBA’s list of banned substances.

For the last 55 days, Portis has not played in an NBA game. Instead, the perennial Sixth Man of the Year candidate has only been able to play in scrimmages and practices with his teammates, so Bucks head coach Doc Rivers knows Portis is going to bring a lot of pent-up energy to Tuesday’s proceedings.

“Bobby’s going to foul out in like three minutes in the first game back,” Rivers joked when asked about Portis’ return to action following the win over the Miami Heat on Saturday. “That’s 25 games sitting. If you watched our low-minute pick-up games, they are the most intense pick-up games you’ve ever seen.

“It was full throttle today and I was like, ‘Man, that guy needs to play in an NBA game soon.’ So, I can’t wait to see him.”

Before Portis takes the floor though, let’s play some Ones for an in-depth look at the micro and macro trends that have affected the Bucks in the last week, as well as what lies ahead in the final week of the regular season.

One play: AJ Green’s passing

As the Bucks successfully closed out both games of their weekend back-to-back in Miami and New Orleans, they relied upon Brook Lopez to screen and then roll to the rim in the middle of the floor, a throwback to the first nine seasons of his NBA career with the Brooklyn Nets.

While that has often meant screening for Giannis Antetokounmpo and Kevin Porter Jr., the Bucks also used Lopez in other screen-and-roll actions in both games. That included putting Lopez into actions with 3-point sharpshooter AJ Green.

At this point, there is no denying the reputation Green has developed as a 3-point shooter and the attention he draws from defenses. Teams go out of their way to make sure Green does not get clean looks, so the Bucks have started to make more of an effort to make teams pay for overplaying their 25-year-old 3-point threat.

Look at how the Heat defended Green on this play late in Saturday’s game:

While it may not seem like a lot, Green has recorded 100 assists this season after recording only 33 last season. His minutes increased from 614 last season to 1,573 this season, per Cleaning the Glass, and his assist percentage rose from 5.7 percent to 8.5 percent this season.

Rivers explained that he believed Green has been able to improve in that regard this season for two reasons. The first reason was simple.

“He’s really good with the ball coming off screens,” Rivers said. “In college, he ran a lot of pick and rolls, so it’s not like it’s something he hasn’t done before.”

The second reason was more complex.

“His timing is getting better,” Rivers said. “Young players are so antsy, they kind of give the answer away half the time. We get on AJ a lot when he’s a weakside action to act like the action is not coming to you.

“I said I was a defender. And you give it away every time. When you get antsy, you start jumping around. It’s like you’re screaming, ‘The next action is for me.’ I think he’s getting better at that.”

While Green did not close against the Pelicans on Sunday as he did against the Heat on Saturday, he still showed his passing acumen at the start of the fourth quarter.

With calm feet to start the play, Green did not give away the action for him and forced a switch on the dribble handoff with Kyle Kuzma. With an oversized defender chasing him, Green kept moving and forced more attention from help defenders by “ghosting” a screen for Ryan Rollins and slipping out to the 3-point line. With two defenders chasing him to contest the shot, Green jumped in the air as though he was going to shoot and then dished it off to Gary Trent Jr., a 41.6 percent 3-point shooter, for an easy catch-and-shoot look.

Green doesn’t have to be a playmaker for the Bucks, but if he can leverage the threat of his 3-point shooting to occasionally make a play for others, the Bucks will be more dangerous in the postseason.

One player: Kyle Kuzma

At the trade deadline, Bucks general manager Jon Horst acquired three new players.

Before tearing a ligament in his left thumb, Jericho Sims made an impact as a high-energy big man for the Bucks off the bench. And while he has had some ups and downs during his time in Milwaukee, Kevin Porter Jr. has played some of the best basketball of his career and been a major boost recently with Damian Lillard on the sidelines.

Success has been more fleeting for Kyle Kuzma, the NBA champion and biggest name added at the deadline. Kuzma has started 28 games in Milwaukee and averaged 14.4 points, 6.0 rebounds and 2.4 assists in 33.2 minutes per game, but hasn’t found a comfortable groove.

Outside of the start of this season with the Washington Wizards, Kuzma’s effective field goal percentage of 49.6 percent with the Bucks is the worst of his career. His 30.1 percent accuracy from 3 is also the worst other than the start of this season with the Wizards. He’s made only 25 percent of his corner 3 attempts. According to Cleaning the Glass, the 29-year-old forward’s turnover percentage of 15 percent is the highest of his career.

“He’s playing with guys that shoot a lot,” said Rivers when asked why Kuzma has not yet been able to get comfortable in Milwaukee. “I know that sounds crazy, but when Kyle’s on the floor, he’s also with Giannis and Brook, so shots are less, so he’s trying to find his way and he will.

“We gotta get him to see his shot profile with this team. And once we do that and he gets comfortable with it, he’ll be fine.”

The Bucks have four regular-season games left, so Kuzma doesn’t have a ton of time to get comfortable. He needs to be ready for the crucible of postseason basketball in less than two weeks, so the Bucks need to find a place for him to excel.

“I think he’s a slasher,” Rivers said, when asked what he sees as Kuzma’s shot profile. “A guy that can take people off the dribble in dribble handoff actions.

“Transition, we really want him … you know, we’re not throwing as many advance passes as we were earlier. We have to get back to that. That was really beneficial for Kyle. He posts up guys that are smaller than him. He does a great job there. And corner 3s.”

The task of getting Kuzma the shots that they want him to get will only become more difficult with the return of Portis on Tuesday. If Lillard can play again this season, keeping Kuzma comfortable will become even tougher.

The 29-year-old forward from Flint, Mich., has been insistent that he will do what the team needs him to do to fit in, but while Kuzma has eaten minutes and made an impact at times on defense, he just hasn’t been able to find the level of success the Bucks hoped for when they acquired him at the trade deadline.

One trend: Tiebreaker scenarios

The Bucks (44-34) are fifth in the Eastern Conference standings. They have clinched a playoff spot for the ninth consecutive season, but still have some work to do with seeding. The Bucks can still end the season anywhere between fourth and sixth in the East.

It’s the final week of the NBA regular season and there is still so much at stake.

19 of the 20 postseason seeds have yet to be clinched.

Check out all of the seeding possibilities entering the week ahead ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/6PjrCowICj

— NBA Communications (@NBAPR) April 7, 2025

However, the probability of reaching the fourth seed is low. With a three-game lead over Milwaukee in the standings, the Indiana Pacers’ magic number to clinch the fourth seed is two. The Pacers and Bucks have four games remaining on their schedules, so the Pacers need any combination of two of their own wins or Bucks losses to take the fourth seed.

The possibilities are far more interesting (and confusing) when examining the battle for the fifth seed between the Pistons and the Bucks.

With the Pistons’ 127-117 loss to the Sacramento Kings on Monday night, the Bucks now have a 1 1/2-game lead over the Pistons (43-36). Even with that lead, the battle for the East’s fifth spot is not over because the Pistons and Bucks play their final two games against each other.

The Bucks’ magic number is three to take the fifth spot over the Pistons.

So, if Milwaukee wins on Tuesday against the Timberwolves and Thursday against the Pelicans and the Pistons lose to the Knicks on Thursday, the Bucks would clinch the fifth spot before heading to Detroit for their first of two games against the Pistons.

But if any of those three outcomes — Bucks-Wolves, Bucks-Pelicans, Pistons-Knicks — go the opposite direction, the Bucks would need to win at least one game over the Pistons.

Here’s why.

For the Bucks to end the season tied with the Pistons would require Detroit to win both games against Milwaukee. If that happened, the NBA would need to work through the tiebreakers to determine who would take the fifth spot in the East.

If everything laid out above occurred, the Pistons’ two wins would tie the head-to-head record and division record. Since neither team won the Central Division, the Pistons’ two wins over the Bucks would make Detroit’s conference record one game better than Milwaukee and give the Pistons the fifth spot in the Eastern Conference.

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(Photo of Bobby Portis: David Sherman / NBAE via Getty Images)